What trajectory of global energy consumption and carbon emissions can we expect as the world starts to recover from the COVID pandemic in the years ahead? Will we go right back to our activities and travel habits as they were before the pandemic? Or have structural changes already taken place that put us on a different path?
In this episode, we speak with the co-head of the World Energy Outlook series at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), who helps design and direct the construction of their energy scenarios and their guidance to the world’s governments. We discuss three major reports that IEA has issued over the past six months on energy demand and emissions as a result of COVID, and have a look at how much energy demand dropped in 2020, how the fuel demand in various sectors and countries changed, and what the world might expect in 2021 and beyond.
Tim Gould is Chief Energy Economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA).
When he first appeared on Episode #148 – Energy and Emissions after COVID in May 2021, he was co-head of the World Energy Outlook series at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). He designed and directed the work together with the IEA’s Chief Energy Modeller and contributed to the Outlook as a principal author, and he also oversaw the Agency’s analysis of energy investment and finance, including the World Energy Investment series.
He returned for Episode #171 – Rejecting Russia in April 2022. He was still co-head of the World Energy Outlook when he and his colleague Christophe McGlade joined Chris for Episode #215 – IEA’s New Oil & Gas Outlook in January 2024. Parts of the Episode #148 and #215 conversations also feature in Episode #284 – Faster Than Forecast (2026). He came back for Episode #242 – IEA Outlook 2025 in January 2025, part of which also features in Episode #285 – Covering Demand Growth (2026), and for Episode #265 – IEA World Energy Outlook 2025 in December 2025, as a lead author of that year’s Outlook.
Tim joined the IEA in 2008, initially as a specialist on Russian and Caspian energy, before going across to join the World Energy Outlook team under the (then) Chief Economist, Fatih Birol, who is now the IEA’s Executive Director. Before IEA, he worked on European and Eurasian energy issues in Brussels and also spent ten years working in Eastern Europe, primarily in Ukraine. He studied at Oxford University and Johns Hopkins SAIS.
On Twitter: @tim_gould_
On the Web: https://www.iea.org
Recording date: April 27, 2021
Air date: May 26, 2021
Geek rating: 4