Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine could accelerate the energy transition. Due to the “profound reorientation” of the global energy markets, investments in sustainable energies have increased, the International Energy Agency (IEA) explained on the occasion of the publication of its annual report on Thursday. According to this, global CO2 emissions associated with energy production could peak by 2025 and investment in clean energy will increase significantly.
Just last year, the IEA declared that there was “no clear peak in sight” for the emissions associated with energy production.
IEA chief Fatih Birol said the Russian invasion had changed energy markets and politics “not just for today, but for decades to come.” These changes could “speed up the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system,” the report said.
Europe’s “break” with Russian gas happened at a speed that few would have thought possible last year. Russia also “fails” to divert the gas previously delivered to Europe to other countries.
The IEA advises industrialized countries on energy policy issues. She examined three scenarios for her calculations. In all, the agency assumes that Russia’s gas and oil exports will not return to 2021 levels. One scenario assumes that Russia’s share of the world market for oil and gas will halve by 2030.
For the first time, a peak or a plateau in consumption is identified in the scenarios for the fossil fuels coal, gas and oil. The central scenario, taking into account climate programs such as the EU’s Fit for 55, assumes that after peaking in 2025, emissions slowly fall from a peak of 37 billion tonnes per year to 32 billion tonnes by 2050. The share of fossil fuels in the global energy supply would decrease from 80 percent to around 60 percent by 2050.
Despite these efforts, the report predicts an increase in average global temperatures of around 2.5 degrees by the year 2100. Efforts were “far from sufficient” to avoid severe climate impacts. In the Paris climate agreement of 2015, the international community committed to limiting global warming to well below two degrees, but if possible to 1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial age.
The IEA stressed the need to invest heavily in clean energy. The agency also includes nuclear power, which causes hardly any CO2 emissions.
The central scenario assumes that global investment in clean energy could increase by 50 percent to $2 trillion per year by 2030. In order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, however, they would have to be twice as high at four trillion dollars.
According to the IEA, it is also important to close the “worrying gap” between poorer and richer countries. This requires “great international efforts”.
In the fight against climate change, meanwhile, many people in Europe give their governments bad marks. According to a survey by the BVA institute for the European Investment Bank and the Jean Jaurès Foundation, 87 percent of Europeans believe that their governments are not up to the challenge of climate change. Global warming is the second biggest concern for respondents after a financial crisis. Around two-thirds of Europeans want their governments to do more to combat climate change.
