In one of the world's best respected forecasts, the International Energy Agency said the global energy crisis and momentum behind clean technology were ushering in "the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era".

It means new emissions of greenhouse gases globally will peak by 2025, it said, though campaigners warned there remained a "massive and deadly gap" with the pace of change needed.

IEA executive director Fatih Birol said: "The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it's unstoppable.

"It's not a question of 'if', it's just a matter of 'how soon' - and the sooner the better for all of us."

According to the IEA, existing policies and laws around the world mean by 2030 it expects:

• Almost 10 times as many electric cars on the road
• Renewables' share of the global electricity mix jumping from 30% to almost 50%, with a surge in solar PV
• Heat pumps and other electric heating systems outselling fossil fuel boilers
• Three times as much investment going into new offshore wind projects than into new fossil fuel power plants
• Peak demand for oil, gas and coal.

But it warned even these radical shifts that were already underway were still not enough to limit warming to 1.5C, a crucial threshold set out in the Paris Agreement to stave off more dangerous impacts of climate change.

The IEA's World Energy Outlook 2023 also cautioned the current instability in the Middle East could lead to further disruption to energy markets and prices, in the wake of the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The report said the world could even see a "supply glut" in gas, due to a simultaneous "unprecedented surge" in new liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects coming online in 2025 coinciding with a drop in demand.

'Dramatic change'

The forecast means the share of global energy provided by fossil fuels will finally start to decline, from 80%, where it has been "stuck for decades", to 73% by 2030.

The news about peak fossil fuel demand reflects a "dramatic change" compared with what analysts thought would have been possible just 10-15 years ago, said Philippe Benoit, a manager at the IEA between 2011-2016.

Two key things have been incrementally driving that change, said Mr Benoit, who now works at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York.

Firstly, there is an "increased momentum and desire to deal with greenhouse gas emissions", fuelled partly by more engaged younger people, and partly by a greater recognition that energy security and low carbon technologies are "actually self-reinforcing rather than competing objectives".

It's also down to the fact that "technological innovation has really opened up a whole slew of opportunities", such as growing electric vehicle sales that are making a huge dent in the demand for oil.

Row brewing over fossil fuel decline

But the report was stark in its warning that the progress was nowhere near enough to get the world on course for 1.5C of warming, with the current trajectory estimated at around 2.4C. Until emissions reach almost zero, the climate will continue to warm.

This risks not only making the impacts of climate change even worse after a year of record-breaking heat, but also "undermining the security of the energy system", which was built for a cooler world with less extreme weather events.

The report puts pressure on leaders preparing for the next global climate negotiations at COP28 in Dubai in December.

The talks are expected to yield another row over a global pact to phase out fossil fuels, with generally oil and gas producing countries or major emitters preferring a "phase down", or other softer targets.

The IEA urged those meeting in Dubai to agree to triple global renewable capacity and create "measures to ensure an orderly decline in the use of fossil fuels".

Kelly Trout, research director at campaign group Oil Change International, said there remained "a massive and deadly gap compared to the pace of energy transition that's needed".

"The only way out of climate disaster is the oil and gas to peak immediately and decline rapidly," she said, pointing to the IEA's repeated warning that no new fossil fuel developments are compatible with limiting warming to 1.5C.

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