The International Energy Agency’s flagship report World Energy Outlook 2025 has been released, and includes a feature on the impact of rail in China’s transport mix. Thanks to a close, multi‑year partnership between the organisations, the report published this month draws upon UIC data.
“This partnership allows us to make rail a visible lever in transforming transport,” says Lucie Anderton, Sustainability Director for UIC. “When the IEA can quantify the oil saved by a single mode, it gives policymakers a clear, comparable metric that electric‑vehicle projections alone cannot deliver.”
The Chinese story: rail as an oil‑saving solution
China’s decade‑long programme of intercity, high‑speed and conventional railway has turned the country into living proof of the climate benefits of rail – and the IEA Outlook has quantified those benefits. In 2024, railway transport in China avoided roughly 1.5 million barrels of oil per day – a figure that exceeds the total oil saved by all electric vehicle sales worldwide to date. Between 2015 and 2024, the cumulative avoidance of oil amounts to almost 12 million barrels per day, avoiding about 1.6 gigatonnes of CO₂, an amount equivalent to China’s total emissions from transport, buildings and light industry in 2024.
The reduction was achieved through a combination of massive network expansion and sustained modal shift from road and air to rail. High‑speed rail mileage doubled from roughly 20,000 km in 2015 to more than 40,000 km in 2024, now three times the total length of all high‑speed lines outside China. By 2035 the network is projected to exceed 45,000 km under the IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario.
Electrification is a cornerstone of the success story. More than seventy percent of all non‑urban rail kilometres are powered by electricity in China, while the remaining share is covered by alternative fuels and a shrinking fraction of diesel. The result is a system that is dramatically less oil‑intensive than its road and aviation counterparts. A typical passenger-kilometre on Chinese non‑urban rail consumes about eighty times less oil than the same distance travelled by air, nearly one hundred times less than a private car, and roughly ten times less than a bus. Freight moved by rail is about thirty times less oil‑intensive than the equivalent road haulage.
Transport energy trends across modes
The Outlook report makes a striking comparison: the oil saved by Chinese non‑urban rail in a single year exceeds the oil displaced globally by the entire fleet of battery‑electric cars on today’s roads worldwide.
The IEA’s broader analysis confirms that rail remains the most electrified transport mode on the planet and the most energy‑efficient for passengers; second only to pipelines for freight. Road transport still relies heavily on oil, with electricity accounting for only a modest share of demand today, but this is projected to rise sharply by 2035. Even as road activity expands, oil demand for the sector is expected to peak before gradually declining. In contrast, rail’s electrified share already exceeds fifty percent and is set to rise, driving a modest but steady reduction in oil use despite predicting growing passenger and freight volumes.
Policy implications – why rail must be central to climate strategies
The speed and scale of oil‑demand reductions achieved by Chinese non‑urban rail illustrate why rail should sit at the heart of national energy and climate policies. Each kilometre of electrified track replaces dozens of kilometres of oil‑intensive road travel, delivering immediate energy demand reductions that outpace even the most optimistic electric‑vehicle roll‑outs in many emerging economies.
Economic co‑benefits accompany the environmental gains. Lower oil imports translate into reduced exposure to price volatility and generate thousands of skilled jobs.
UIC’s partnership with the IEA will continue, giving the global rail community a powerful evidence base for a seat at the table of national energy strategies.
You can find out more about high-speed rail in China, and around the world, here in our High-Speed Rail Atlas.
To access UIC statistics directly, please visit: https://uic-stats.uic.org/.
You can access the full IEA report here.
For a deeper dive into rail’s contribution to the energy transition, stay tuned for UIC’s Global Rail Sustainability Report 2024, scheduled for release on UN International Sustainable Transport Day, 26 November 2025.
