Global warming is set to heat up with temperatures rising to nearly twice targets set by the United Nations, the International Energy Agency warned on today.
This is despite pushes towards energy efficiency and a raft of international pledges to curb global warming, the IEA said.
Greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 20 per cent by 2035, putting the world on track for a temperature increase of 3.6 degrees, far above the UN target of 2.0 degrees.
In the past, the IEA has said that the world temperature would shoot up by six degrees if all efforts to limit human-based emissions were abandoned.
The IEA's forecast of a 3.6-degree rise in global temperatures, came just as nations launched a new round of talks in Warsaw for a 2015 deal to cut Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
The global energy sector is responsible for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions and whatever trends emerge in the coming years will be pivotal to determining whether climate change commitments are met, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said.
But in its annual report on long-term trends in the sector, the agency said that the increase was to be expected despite a substantial rise in energy efficiency and usage of renewable energy.
The agency is the energy policy arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development which advises 34 advanced democracies on policies.
The IEA praised recent initiatives in many of the world's biggest economies to curb carbon emissions, which all had the potential to effect change, it said.
But despite the best efforts, climate-changing energy consumption was still on a sharp rise.
In its long-term forecast, the agency said that global demand for oil would hit 101 million barrels per day, a rise of 14 mbd in less than a quarter of a century. This ocean of oil is the equivalent to about 16.1 billion litres of oil being burned every 24 hours.
The use of coal meanwhile, which is the worst performer when it comes to carbon emissions, will rise by 17 percent between now and 2035, primarily because the fossil fuel remains far cheaper than the cleaner but harder-to-ship natural gas.
Any prospect of reversing the continuing increase in the use of coal depended mostly on China, the world's biggest energy consumer, which burns as much coal every year as the rest of the world combined.
In the report, the IEA was sceptical about the benefits of stocking carbon, which had once been seen as a possible solution to the inexorable rise of greenhouse gases.
