- The global clean energy transition’s success will hinge on progress in the United States, China, Europe, and India. The four economies account for 60 per cent of expected energy-related emissions from 2030 to 2050.
- Current policies would raise global temperatures by 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, higher than 2015’s Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has said the proportion of clean energy in the global energy supply must rise to 50 to 70 per cent by 2050 from 12 per cent in 2021. According to BCG, renewables and other low-carbon solutions’ share in the global energy supply must rise four to sixfold by 2050. This rise will enable countries to reach the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The world must transition to clean energy three times faster than previous energy transitions. The report said these energy sources must match the maximum shares held by coal and oil roughly three times faster than those commodities did and ultimately account for most primary energy by 2050.
“Society has gone through energy transitions in the past – but nothing like this one. The adoption of coal occurred over roughly five decades, and the shift from coal to oil took more than three decades. To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, we must ramp up renewables and other low-carbon solutions at warp speed,” BCG noted in the report.
The report stated that by 2050, global electricity consumption is projected to double. However, over 775 million people globally will still have no access to electricity, and societies will need more than 20-megawatt hours (MWh) of primary energy per person to reach high levels of prosperity. To meet these competing demands, society must massively accelerate the substitution and reduction of fossil fuels.
To achieve transitional targets, the world must rapidly increase energy efficiency and electrify end uses via applications such as electric vehicles or heat pumps. BCG further said that decarbonise power supplies, use low-carbon fuels in hard-to-abate use cases, and deploy carbon capture.
Maurice Berns, a BCG managing director and co-author of the report, said, “Most of the tools we need to bring our energy system to net zero are already available. What we need, urgently, are the policies, proven business cases, and capabilities to effect the biggest and most critical peacetime transformation in our economic history.”
According to the United Nations, current policies would raise global temperatures by 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, far beyond the 1.5 degrees Celsius target that countries set in the Paris Agreement in 2015. The report states that the global energy transition’s success will hinge on progress in the United States, China, Europe, and India, as the four economies account for 60 per cent of expected energy-related emissions from 2030 to 2050.
The report came right before the G20 summit in India this weekend, where global leaders of the world’s largest economies will discuss solutions to tackling climate change and opportunities for economic cooperation.