PARIS, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Global energy investment is forecast to fall by 20 percent or 400 billion U.S. dollars in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

According to the IEA, the predicted largest decline of global energy investment in history could have "serious" side effects for energy security and clean energy transitions.

At the beginning of this year, investment in this sector was on track for 2-percent growth in 2020, the biggest increase in six years, the energy agency noted.

"The historic plunge in global energy investment is deeply troubling for many reasons," Executive Director of the IEA Fatih Birol said in a statement.

"It means lost jobs and economic opportunities today, as well as lost energy supply that we might well need tomorrow once the economy recovers," Birol noted.

Faced with the COVID-19 crisis, global energy companies have reduced investments and put aside their projects, said the IEA, noting that investment in oil and gas is predicted to drop by almost one-third.