LONDON, Oct 13 (BNA) – The International Energy Agency said on Wednesday that investment in renewable energy must triple by the end of the decade if the world is to hope to combat climate change effectively and keep volatile energy markets in check.
“The world is not investing enough to meet its future energy needs…Transition-related spending is gradually increasing, but it is still far below what is needed to meet the growing demand for energy services in a sustainable way,” the IEA said. Reuters reported.
“Clear signals and guidance from policy makers are essential. If the road ahead is paved only with good intentions, it will be a really bumpy road,” she added.
The Paris-based organization released its annual Global Energy Outlook early this year to guide the UN Climate Change Conference COP26, which is now less than a month away.
He described the Glasgow meeting in Scotland as “the first test of countries’ willingness to make new and more ambitious commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement” and “an opportunity to provide an ‘unequivocal signal’ accelerating the transition to clean energy around the world.”
In recent weeks, electricity prices have jumped to record levels with oil and natural gas prices at multi-year highs, and widespread power shortages engulfing Asia, Europe and the United States. Demand for fossil fuels is also recovering as governments ease restrictions to contain the spread of COVID-19.
The International Energy Agency has warned that renewables such as solar, wind and hydro power along with bioenergy need to make up a much larger share in the post-pandemic energy investment recovery.
The International Energy Agency has indicated that renewables will account for more than two-thirds of investment in new energy capacity this year, but significant gains in coal and oil use have caused the second-largest annual increase in climate-change-causing carbon dioxide emissions.
The IEA said a faster energy transition would better protect consumers in the future, because the commodity price shock would raise costs to households 30% less in the more ambitious Net Zero Emissions 2050 (NZE) scenario versus the more conservative policy scenario. (steps).
However, the leap needed to make good on pledges in the 2015 Paris Agreement to end temperature rises as close as possible to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times is still vast.
Fossil fuels, coal, natural gas, and oil accounted for nearly 80% of global energy supply in 2020 while renewables made up only 12%.
To keep this rise close to 1.5 degrees, the International Energy Agency’s forecasts envision that fossil fuels will shrink to just under a quarter of the supply mix in mid-century and that renewables will rise to just over two-thirds.
If the world stays on the current path set by the STEPS scenario, temperatures will jump by 2.6°C by 2100.
The IEA forecasts peak oil demand in all of its scenarios for the first time, in the mid-2030s in STEPS forecasts with a very gradual decline but in the New Zealand forecast plateau within a decade and declines more by about three-quarters by 2050.
Redoubling the agency’s stern warning so far about the future of fossil fuels that it provided in a report released in May, the IEA said its New Zealand picture depicts lower demand and increased low-emissions fuels, making new oil and gas fields beyond 2021 unnecessary.
However, she said that new oil fields would be required in the two most conservative scenarios and offered advice on mitigating their climate impact such as reducing methane burning.
And the International Energy Agency warned that “every data point that shows the speed of change in energy can be countered by another that shows the intransigence of the status quo.”
“Today’s energy system is unable to meet these challenges; a low-emissions revolution is long overdue.”
HF