The International Energy Agency, the world’s leading energy agency, issued a warning on Thursday, stating that the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s actions in Ukraine is more likely to precipitate the global transition away from dirty energy sources than to stall it, reports The New York Times.
The International Energy Agency stated in its annual World Energy Outlook, which forecasts global energy trends to 2050, that while some countries have been burning more fossil fuels like coal this year in response to natural gas shortages caused by the conflict in Ukraine, that effect is expected to be fleeting.
Based on national government policies, it is anticipated that coal usage will decline in the following years, natural gas consumption will decrease by the end of this decade, and global oil use will stabilize by the middle of the 30s. The agency stated that global renewable energy investment is anticipated to increase from $1.3 trillion in 2022 to more than $2 trillion annually by 2030.
[bs-quote quote=”Notably, many of these new clean energy targets aren’t being put in place solely for climate change reasons… Increasingly, the big drivers are energy security as well as industrial policy — a lot of countries want to be at the leading edge of the energy industries of the future” style=”default” align=”left” color=”” author_name=”Fatih Birol” author_job=”International Energy agency’s executive director” author_avatar=”” author_link=””][/bs-quote]
Many countries have been increasingly looking towards renewable energy sources such as wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants, hydrogen fuels, electric vehicles, and electric heat pumps to circumvent the sky-high price tag of fossil fuels.
Under the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, Congress in the U.S. approved spending on such technology totaling more than $370 billion. A new “green transformation” program adopted by Japan will aid in funding low-emissions technologies, including hydrogen and nuclear power. National atomic and renewable energy targets have increased in China, India, and South Koran.
With places like Europe rushing to replace lost Russian gas, it is anticipated that this year’s global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels would grow by about 1% and reach historic highs. If it were not for the fast international adoption of Birogreen energy, the increase in emissions would have been three times as great, the agency claimed. According to NYT, rising energy costs and sluggish economic expansion in China and Europe also helped keep emissions low.
This year’s rise in coal generation may easily be replaced by the approximately 50 gigawatts of renewable energy that European countries aim to build next year. The current energy crisis would eventually benefit greener technology, but the report found that it already has a devastating impact, says the New York Times.
The New York Times stated that governments worldwide have already pledged approximately $500 billion to protect consumers from skyrocketing energy prices. As stocks are depleted and new supplies to replace Russian gas, like increased shipments from the U.S. or Qatar, are slow to come online, the report warns that while European nations currently have enough natural gas in storage to get them through a mild winter this year, next winter in Europe “could be even tougher.”
The situation appears to be even worse in developing nations like Pakistan and Bangladesh, where there are energy shortages. The report found that climate change policies did not primarily cause the rise in prices; there is always the possibility that governments will feel under pressure to reverse course.
The new assessment is released less than two weeks before international participants meet in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, for the U.N. climate conference. Diplomats will decide whether and how to scale up efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions and deliver more financial aid from more affluent to poorer countries, estimated NYT.