Building momentum: 5 years on from Glasgow COP26

It’s been 5 years now since the World descended on Glasgow for COP26 and 10 years since the Paris Agreement, with delegates and political leaders this time meeting in the Brazilian city of Belém for the latest edition of the UN’s Climate summit, COP 30.

In the run-up to the summit, UN Secretary General António Guterres last week outlined five urgent priorities, namely: align laws and subsidies with just energy transitions; protect workers and communities; invest in grids and storage; ensure new demand, including from AI, is met with clean power; and unlock affordable finance for developing countries.

Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, for anyone with an interest in the energy and environment sector, Mr Guterres’ priorities reflect the view that the energy transition is happening but not at the pace required to meet the goals from Paris, with similar issues highlighted in DNV's recently published 2025 Energy Outlook Report.

DNV’s annual Energy Transition Outlook always provides plenty of food for thought and the 2025 Report includes a number of areas discussed in the Report which are of particular interest from an IP perspective, including, amongst other things: 

• the protection of innovations for the key transition enabling technologies identified in the Report;
• the contribution of ancillary technologies, supporting infrastructure and innovation at all levels of the supply chain, e.g. in view of the Report's emphasis on whole energy systems;
• regional innovation strategies and associated IP jurisdictional implications, e.g. reflecting the different regional pathways outlined in the Report; and
• the interplay between IP strategy and national and international energy policy, finance and regulation.

While, as expected, oil and gas are forecast to remain key contributors to the energy generation landscape, the Report discusses their evolving role in the energy mix. 

In addition to the changing energy generation landscape, the Report also looks at the changing landscape of energy demand. For example, despite the expected rapid overall growth in energy demand to support AI infrastructure – discussed e.g. in IEA’s April 2025 Energy and AI Report - DNV highlight that the energy demands from EV charging and space cooling in particular will mean that AI energy use will represent only 3% of global electricity demand by 2040. Of course, disruptive innovative technologies may well also play a role in this, as discussed in our recent insights here.

The Report goes on to discuss key considerations in the fields of Policy and Finance, and their impact on the energy landscape. Policy and regulation uncertainty is identified as a major barrier to deployment, which echoes a call to action from Andrew Docherty, Marks & Clerk’s Energy & Environment lead, in his recent article for Energy Voice.

Interestingly, this year’s Report opts to provide a forecast through to 2060 rather than 2050, in recognition of the fact that many of the energy assets constructed today will have a lifetime beyond 2050. From an IP perspective, this requires innovators to also consider or adapt their IP filing and management strategies in view of this expected decades-long transition. 

At Marks & Clerk, we help organisations right across the supply chain use their intellectual property to achieve their commercial ambitions. Speak to a specialist now to discuss your IP strategy.