Executive Summary Absent any additional policies, our analysis in this alternative International Energy Outlook 2021 (IEO2021) case indicates that an increase in wages in China does not lead to a large increase in energy consumption. Somewhat unexpectedly, the largest increases in energy consumption in the Higher China Wages case are outside of China as China increases its demand for relatively lower-cost imports and exports less. In this paper, we explore an IEO2021 case in which we assume higher incomes in China relative to the Reference case. We maintain all other Reference case assumptions so we can see the effects of wage changes in China in isolation. We analyze the resulting impacts on China’s economy and trade, as well as energy consumption in China and other regions. Our assumed level of higher incomes in China increases global energy consumption by only 1.4% above 2050 Reference case levels. The largest global […]