The next 25 years will see a radical shift towards renewables and away from coal, a global energy centre of gravity pivoting towards India and the prospect of Africa leapfrogging dirty energy. These are some of the insights touted by the International Energy Agency (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2015 , published this week. The annual outlook, weighing in at 700 pages, is one of the most widely-read and universally respected set of energy-related forecasts in the world. Yet it’s important to remember it remains just that: a forecast , reflecting a complex set of economic and energy-cost assumptions. Carbon Brief reviews some of the conservative assumptions that lie behind the outlook’s findings. China is slowing down One of the most dramatic shifts seen in this year’s outlook is the slowdown in China, in particular for coal. Now the world’s largest emitter, China is responsible for burning half of all […]