Renewables growth rate insufficient to meet 2030 target, Irena says

Capacity needs to grow by at least 16.4 per cent annually to hit goal set at Cop28

Renewable energy capacity increased by an 'unprecedented' 14 per cent last year but even at that rate Irena says the world will fall short of the target set at Cop28. Bloomberg

While renewable energy is expanding rapidly, it is not growing fast enough to meet the targets set for 2030, the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) has said.

Capacity needs to grow by at least 16.4 per cent annually until 2030 to achieve the tripling target pledged at the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai last year, the Abu Dhabi-based agency said in a report on Thursday.

During the UN summit, more than 110 countries committed to work together to triple the world’s current renewable energy generation capacity to at least 11,000 gigawatts by the end of the decade, taking into consideration the “different starting points and national circumstances”.

The pledge is considered key to limiting global warming to 1.5°C and avoiding its most disastrous effects.

Renewable energy capacity increased by an “unprecedented” 14 per cent last year, but even at that rate the world will still fall short of the target by 1.5 terawatts, Irena said.

Meanwhile, if the world maintains the historical annual growth rate of 10 per cent, renewable energy capacity will only reach 7.5 terawatts by 2030, falling short of the goal by nearly one third, the agency added.

Francesco La Camera, director general of Irena at the Renewables Talk event at Irena headquarters, Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. Khushnum Bhandari / The National

“Renewable energy has been increasingly outperforming fossil fuels but it is not the time to be complacent,” said Francesco La Camera, Irena director general.

“If we continue with the current growth rate, we will only face failure in reaching the tripling renewables target … consequently risking the goals of the Paris Agreement."

Most of the recent growth in renewable energy has been driven by China, the EU and the US.

Meanwhile, many developing countries have fallen behind in clean-energy investment because they lack adequate funding and infrastructure.

Accelerating renewable energy adoption would require overcoming certain “structural barriers”, Mr La Camera told The National in an interview in January.

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“We need to overcome barriers [such as] infrastructure, grids, the legal environment, the market design, additional capacity, a skilled labour force … and also linking the idea of development to the idea of building the new energy system,” he said.

By 2030, emerging markets and developing economies will require $2.4 trillion every year to address climate change, according to the Climate Policy Initiative.

Deloitte estimates an investment of $5 trillion to $7 trillion a year is needed until 2050 in the energy sector to drive the transition, however, less than $2 trillion is currently being spent annually.

“Governments need to set explicit renewable-energy targets, look at actions like accelerating permitting and expanding grid connections, and implement smart policies that push industries to step up and incentivise the private sector to invest,” said Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, who also served as Cop28 President.

“Additionally, this moment provides a significant opportunity to add strong national energy targets in nationally determined contributions to support the global goal of keeping the 1.5°C target within reach."