World has six months to avert climate crisis,
says energy expert
International Energy Agency chief warns of need to
prevent post-lockdown surge in emissions
Fiona
Harvey Environment correspondent
Thu 18 Jun 2020 05.00 BST
The world
has only six months in which to change the course of the climate crisis and
prevent a post-lockdown rebound in greenhouse gas emissions that would
overwhelm efforts to stave off climate catastrophe, one of the world’s foremost
energy experts has warned.
“This year
is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound,” said Fatih
Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.
Governments
are planning to spend $9tn (£7.2tn) globally in the next few months on rescuing
their economies from the coronavirus crisis, the IEA has calculated. The
stimulus packages created this year will determine the shape of the global economy
for the next three years, according to Birol, and within that time emissions
must start to fall sharply and permanently, or climate targets will be out of
reach.
“The next
three years will determine the course of the next 30 years and beyond,” Birol
told the Guardian. “If we do not [take action] we will surely see a rebound in
emissions. If emissions rebound, it is very difficult to see how they will be
brought down in future. This is why we are urging governments to have
sustainable recovery packages.”
Carbon
dioxide emissions plunged by a global average of 17% in April, compared with
last year, but have since surged again to within about 5% of last year’s
levels.
In a report
published on Thursday, the IEA – the world’s gold standard for energy analysis
- set out the first global blueprint for a green recovery, focusing on reforms
to energy generation and consumption. Wind and solar power should be a top
focus, the report advised, alongside energy efficiency improvements to
buildings and industries, and the modernisation of electricity grids.
Creating
jobs must be the priority for countries where millions have been thrown into
unemployment by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns. The
IEA’s analysis shows that targeting green jobs – such as retrofitting buildings
to make them more energy efficient, putting up solar panels and constructing
wind farms – is more effective than pouring money into the high-carbon economy.
Sam
Fankhauser, executive director of the Grantham Research Institute on climate
change at the London School of Economics, who was not involved in the report,
said: “Building efficiency ticks all the recovery boxes – shovel-ready,
employment intensive, a high economic multiplier, and is absolutely key for
zero carbon [as it is] a hard-to-treat sector, and has big social benefits, in
the form of lower fuel bills.”
He warned
that governments must not try to “preserve existing jobs in formaldehyde”
through furlough schemes and other efforts to keep people in employment, but
provide retraining and other opportunities for people to “move into the jobs of
the future”.
Calls for a
green recovery globally have now come from experts, economists, health
professionals, educators, climate campaigners and politicians. While some
governments are poised to take action – for instance, the EU has pledged to
make its European green deal the centrepiece of its recovery – the money spent
so far has tended to prop up the high-carbon economy.
At least
$33bn has been directed towards airlines, with few or no green strings
attached, according to the campaigning group Transport and Environment.
According to analyst company Bloomberg New Energy Finance, more than half a
trillion dollars worldwide – $509bn – is to be poured into high-carbon
industries, with no conditions to ensure they reduce their carbon output.
Only about
$12.3bn of the spending announced by late last month was set to go towards
low-carbon industries, and a further $18.5bn into high-carbon industries
provided they achieve climate targets.
In the
first tranches of spending, governments “had an excuse” for failing to funnel money
to carbon-cutting industries, said Birol, because they were reacting to a
sudden and unexpected crisis. “The first recovery plans were more aimed at
creating firewalls round the economy,” he explained.
But
governments were still targeting high-carbon investment, Birol warned. He
pointed to IEA research showing that by the end of May the amount invested in
coal-fired power plants in Asia had accelerated compared with last year. “There
are already signs of a rebound [in emissions],” he said.
Climate campaigners
called on ministers to heed the IEA report and set out green recovery plans.
Jamie Peters, campaigns director at Friends of the Earth, said: “A post-Covid
world must be a fair one. It will only be equitable if the government
prioritises health, wellbeing and opportunity for all parts of society. As if
the case was not compelling enough in a dangerously heating planet, it is even
more urgent post-Covid.”
Putting the
IEA’s recommendations into action would boost the economy, added Rosie Rogers,
head of green recovery at Greenpeace UK. “Government putting money behind
sustainable solutions really is an economic no-brainer. It can see us build a
recovery that both tackles the climate emergency and improves people’s lives
through cleaner air and lower bills.”
Investors
were also keen to put private sector money into a green recovery, alongside
government stimulus spending, said Stephanie Pfeifer, chief executive of the
Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change, representing funds and asset
managers with $26tn in assets. “The IEA has shown [a green recovery] is not
only desirable, but economically astute. Investors are fully committed to
playing their part in this process.”
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