- The report called for unified global efforts to help limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
- IEA said with electricity poised to emerge as the “new oil” of the global energy system, investment in global power networks needed to accelerate.
The International Energy Agency urged governments to keep geopolitics out of climate change talks while underlining the significance of electrification in the global pursuit of reaching net zero by 2050. In its updated 2023 Net Zero Roadmap, the IEA marginally softened its stance on upstream projects, saying no “no new long-lead-time upstream oil and gas projects” were needed. This compared to its first May 2021 net zero roadmap, which called for “no new oil and natural gas fields” in outright terms.
The report, which outlines IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) Scenario, also called for unified global efforts to help limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as world leaders come under pressure to accelerate national plans at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12. “Strong international cooperation is crucial to success. Governments need to separate climate from geopolitics, given the scale of the challenge at hand,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.
With oil prices back up near $100/b and demand likely to hit record levels in 2023 and grow again in 2024, climate change concerns have run into energy security considerations for policymakers. That has been adding tension in the lead-up to COP28 hosted by the UAE, a core OPEC member that is expanding its crude production. Birol told reporters he was more optimistic today than two years ago. “We see legitimate reasons to be hopeful because a new clean energy economy is emerging. While we see the path to 1.5 C narrowing, a spectacular increase in clean techs keeps the door open,” he said.
That was particularly the case for solar power, now the cheapest source of generation, and electric vehicles, with one in five cars sold now electric, up from one in 25 in 2021, Birol said. He said that global investment in clean technology had increased 40% over two years to $1.8 trillion, versus fossil fuel investment of $1 trillion. “That $1.8 trillion, however, needs to grow to $4.5 trillion if we want to reach our net zero goals globally – a tall order.”
With electricity poised to emerge as the “new oil” of the global energy system, investment in global power networks needed to accelerate, the IEA said. “For all countries, speeding up permitting, extending and modernizing electricity grids, addressing supply chain bottlenecks, and securely integrating variable renewables are critical,” it said.
The agency expects over 80 per cent of emissions reductions needed by 2030 to be delivered by growing renewables, improving energy efficiency, cutting methane emissions and increasing electrification with available technologies. “The hugely increased need for electricity system flexibility requires massive growth of battery energy storage and demand response; expanded, modernised and cybersecure transmission and distribution grids, and more dispatchable low-emissions capacity, including fossil fuel capacity with carbon capture, utilization and Storage (CCUS), hydropower, biomass, nuclear, and hydrogen and ammonia-based plants,” the report said.
One of the critical pathways to reaching net zero by 2050 will be the tripling of renewables capacity to 11,000 GW by 2030. This doubling of energy efficiency and the doubling of hydrogen production to 180 million mt/year by 2030 are among the key objectives at COP28. On Sept. 9, G20 nations agreed to support the tripling of renewables and acknowledged a $4 trillion/year need to accelerate investment in the energy transition.