A G7+ Strategy for Natural Gas: Four Scenarios for Energy Security in the 2040s – RBC
June 12, 2025
Key Findings
- Gas is critical in our best—and worst—case scenarios for global energy systems. Gas will be vital as a transition fuel in a ‘Decarbonizing World’ before declining by the late-2030s; and as an energy security cushion in our worst-case scenario, that we call ‘Dystopian World’.
- Gas can anchor G7+’s energy security—but needs work. For G7+ consumers, it can reduce dependence on Russia in the near-term and avoid boom-bust cycles. In the longer term, it opens up promising new markets for G7+ producers. But the commodity is geopolitically problematic, too expensive in certain regions like Asia, and deemed too carbon-intensive. The G7+ can help overcome those hurdles.
- Gas can help address, but also worsen, climate change. Achieving net-zero before the 2060s is challenged. But the G7+ can advance policies and technologies that catalyze carbon capture, accelerate methane intensity reductions, and encourage the development of low-carbon alternatives such as ammonia and hydrogen. That would help limit global temperature rise to around 1.7-1.8 Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
