Cite report
IEA (2024), Empowering Urban Energy Transitions, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/empowering-urban-energy-transitions, Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Urban energy revolutions
Key takeaways
- Cities contribute around 80% of global GDP and their associated emissions were responsible for a record 29 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2023.
- More than half of the 8 billion people alive today live in urban areas, and urbanisation is on an upward trend, with parts of Asia and Africa expected to continue to drive the proportion of the global population that is urbanised to around 70% by 2050, with nearly 2 billion more people living in cities than there are today.
- Cities have an essential role to play in tripling the capacity of renewable energy sources, deploying energy-efficient technologies and the electrification of transport and heating, commitments agreed as part of the UAE Consensus at COP28.