TotalEnergies Projects 2.6°C Warming by 2100
The energy company's eighth Energy Outlook maps three global pathways through 2060 under varying levels of policy and technology change.
Updated on Nov. 2, 2026 in Oil and Gas
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TotalEnergies published its eighth Energy Outlook on November 2, projecting warming of 2.6°C to 2.8°C by 2100 under its Trends scenario, which extends current policy directions, technology development, and consumer behavior. Global petroleum demand rises and levels off during the 2030s before gradually declining.
Why it matters
The outlook models how existing constraints on low-carbon deployment, including grid limits, geopolitical tensions, and costs, shape the global energy transition. Its scenarios range from 1.8°C to 2.8°C of warming, showing how sharply outcomes depend on the pace of change.
Low-carbon energy investment reached $2.1 trillion in 2025, up from $1.2 trillion in 2015, according to TotalEnergies' modeling. Under the Trends scenario, fossil fuels' share of U.S. primary energy, currently about 80%, falls to around 60% by 2060, though the timing of that decline remains a scenario assumption.
The players
TotalEnergies
A major French multinational energy company whose annual Energy Outlook publication sets out long-range projections for global energy demand and emissions.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
An intergovernmental bloc of mostly high-income countries that works on economic and energy policy coordination.
The details
The outlook maps three global energy pathways through 2060: Trends, Momentum, and Rupture. The Trends scenario assumes grid constraints, geopolitical tensions, and costs limit deployment of low-carbon technologies, while U.S. electricity production grows partly as data centers and artificial intelligence drive demand.
Timeline
2015: Low-carbon energy investment stands at $1.2 trillion.
2025: Low-carbon energy investment reaches $2.1 trillion.
2030s: Global petroleum demand levels off before gradually declining.
2050: OECD approaches carbon neutrality under the Momentum scenario.
2060: U.S. fossil fuel share of primary energy falls to about 60%.
Market Landscape
The eighth edition continues TotalEnergies' practice of publishing scenario-based outlooks that frame future demand around the Trends, Momentum, and Rupture pathways. Its projected $2.1 trillion in 2025 low-carbon investment, compared with $1.2 trillion in 2015, places the company's own energy-transition spending within a broader shift in capital allocation across the sector.
Investors tracking energy-sector capital allocation can compare the outlook's low-carbon investment figures against company disclosures to gauge spending priorities. Scenario projections like these are planning assumptions rather than forecasts, so their implications for portfolio exposure depend on how individual holdings respond to each pathway.
The takeaway
The outlook's wide spread between the Trends and Rupture scenarios shows that warming outcomes by 2100 are highly sensitive to how quickly low-carbon technologies are deployed. Readers following energy policy should watch which assumptions about grids, costs, and geopolitics prove most consequential over the coming decades.
Further reading
For broader context on how fossil fuel producers are adjusting to the energy transition, see the Oil and Gas section.
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