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The world’s clean energy plans still fall almost a third short of what is needed to reach the 2030 sustainable energy target agreed at last year’s UN climate talks, the International Energy Agency warned, as delegates from nearly 200 countries met again in Bonn this week.
Negotiating a new climate finance deal and upgrading national pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions will take place over 10 days during UN talks to lay the groundwork for the COP29 climate summit in Baku in November.
Negotiations will also focus on how to ensure plans agreed at last year’s COP28 in Dubai are met, including the target of tripling global renewable energy generation capacity to at least 11,000 gigawatts by 2030.
Data released by the IEA on Tuesday shows that existing policies and country estimates imply that 8,000 GW of renewable energy will be installed by the end of the decade. Nearly 40 percent of this capacity, or 3,180 GW, will come from China’s solar, wind and hydropower plans.
The global renewable energy target was “ambitious but achievable – but only if governments quickly translate pledges into action plans,” said Fatih Birol, the agency’s executive director.
The annual addition of renewable capacity has tripled since the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming, the IEA said, while the cost of solar and wind energy has fallen by 40 percent. Nearly half of the countries surveyed have plans to double their renewable energy installations by 2030.
Despite this progress, delays, underinvestment and grid infrastructure issues continue to haunt most energy systems.
The pace of clean energy deployment needs to accelerate in most regions, including the EU, the US and India, the IEA said.
“You’re talking about huge obstacles to overcome in finance, network integration, access to critical minerals and workforce development,” said Alden Meyer, a senior fellow at climate-focused think tank E3G. “It’s a daunting goal and it’s great that there was political consensus that we have to get there, but now [negotiators] are the hardest part.”
The updated national decarbonisation plans that countries must submit to the UN in early 2025 should include more detail on their targets for ramping up renewable energy, the IEA report recommends.
Kicking off meetings in Bonn marking the halfway point of COP29 on Monday, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said the planet was on course for a “ruinously high” rise in global temperatures of 2.7 degrees Celsius in the industrial era.
The discussions began against a somber backdrop. The German government’s climate adviser, the Council of Experts on Climate Change, said it is unlikely to meet its target of cutting emissions by 65 percent from 1990 levels by 2030, despite a slowdown in production which has contributed to the country’s lower emissions over the past year.
Flood warnings were also issued this week for large parts of Germany and the Rhine was closed to shipping due to high water levels. Areas of the country have experienced periods of extreme rainfall since the start of the year, in line with global trends.
The first day of talks was interrupted by demonstrators holding a Palestinian flag, and also held up by a complaint from the Russian delegation over access to German visas.
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