Victor Uzoho
The International Energy Agency (IEA), Wednesday, warned that the global transition to clean energy is “far too slow” to meet the climate pledges and risks, fuelling even greater price volatility, noting that insufficient investment was contributing to uncertainty over the future.
Specifically, IEA Executive Director, Fatih Birol, stressed the need for more investments today, to meet future energy needs and overcome uncertainties.
“We are not investing enough to meet future energy needs, and the uncertainties are setting the stage for a volatile period ahead. The social and economic benefits of accelerating clean energy transitions are huge, and the costs of inaction are immense,” Birol said.
He continued: “Reaching that path requires investment in clean energy projects and infrastructure to more than triple over the next decade. Some 70% of that additional spending needs to happen in emerging and developing economies.
“More than 40% of the required emissions reductions would come from measures that pay for themselves, such as improving efficiency, limiting gas leakage, or installing wind or solar in places where they are now the most competitive electricity generation technologies.
“Spending on oil and natural gas has been depressed by price collapses in 2014-15 and again in 2020. As a result, it is geared towards a world of stagnant or even falling demand.
“At the same time, spending on clean energy transitions is far below what would be required to meet future needs sustainably.”
Ahead of the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, the IEA in its annual World Energy Outlook report, reiterated that if the climate pledges are to be met, investment in clean energy projects and infrastructure needs to be more than tripled over the next decade.
Reaching that path requires investment in clean energy projects and infrastructure to more than triple over the next decade. Some 70% of that additional spending needs to happen in emerging and developing economies.
At the summit, countries will come under pressure to commit to decisive action to limit global warming to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels, as pledged in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
The report, which advises developed countries on energy policy, said renewable energies such as wind and solar continued to grow rapidly, while electric vehicles set new sales records in 2020, even as economies were affected by the weight of COVID-19 lockdowns.
However, the report said: “This clean energy progress is still far too slow to put global emissions into sustained decline towards net zero” by 2050, to limit global temperatures to 1.5˚C.
Also, the IEA noted that while almost all the increased energy demand until 2050 could be met by low emissions sources, annual emissions would still be roughly the same as today as developing economies build up their nationwide infrastructure.
Under this scenario, temperatures in 2100 would be 2.6 ˚C higher than pre-industrial levels.
A second scenario looked at promises made by some governments to achieve net-zero emissions in the future, which would see a doubling of clean energy investment and financing over the next decade.
If these pledges are fully implemented in time, the IEA projects that the demand for fossil fuels would peak by 2025, while global CO2 emissions would fall by 40% by 2050.
Here, the global average temperature increase in 2100 would be around 2.1˚C, and represents an improvement, but still way above the 1.5˚C agreed under the Paris accord, it concluded.