Global demand for fossil fuels will peak in 2023, an influential thinktank has predicted. Explosive growth in wind and solar will combine with action on climate change and slowing growth in energy needs to ensure that fossil fuel demand peaks in the 2020s, Carbon Tracker predicted. The projection is much more bullish than estimates by the global energy watchdog and oil and gas companies, which mostly expect demand to peak in the mid-2030s. Coal reached its peak in 2014. The group, which popularised the notion of a carbon bubble - where fossil fuel assets lose their value in the switch to a low-carbon economy - said the findings spelled disruption for energy firms. The Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, has already warned that markets face a "huge hit" from the transition. The Carbon Tracker report warned incumbency and size would be no protection, and compared the fate of fossil fuel firms to the horse and cart at the start of the 20th century. "Demand for incumbents peaks early, and investors in incumbents lose money early," it said. The first two decades of this century were the innovation period for renewables, the authors said, while the "endgame" for fossil fuels - when renewables overtake them - would come from 2050 onwards. Falling wind and solar costs would lead to some emerging countries "leapfrogging" fossil fuels and opting for renewables to meet most of their growing energy needs, the thinktank said.