The world has made almost no progress towards reducing the carbon content of its energy supplies in the last 20 years, despite pumping trillions of dollars of investment into renewable energy projects like wind and solar power, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday.
The world has made almost no progress towards reducing the carbon
content of its energy supplies in the last 20 years, despite pumping trillions
of dollars of investment into renewable energy projects like wind and solar
power, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday.
In its third annual report tracking the progress of clean energy technology,
the IEA, which advises rich industrialized countries on energy policy, paints a
bleak picture of global efforts to reduce emissions of gases that scientists
say are causing climate change.
"The drive to clean up the world's energy system has stalled," Maria
van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA, said in a press statement. "We
cannot afford another 20 years of listlessness. We need a rapid expansion in
low-carbon energy technologies if we are to avoid a potentially catastrophic
warming of the planet, but we must also accelerate the shift away from dirtier
fossil fuels."
The report by the IEA comes just a day after the survival of the world's flagship
plan to tackle global warming, the European Union's carbon dioxide Emissions
Trading System, was put in doubt after a proposal to support the carbon market
was rejected by the European Parliament.
According to the IEA, carbon dioxide emissions from each unit of energy
consumed have fallen by less than 1% since 1990, largely due to coal's
continued dominance as the fuel of electricity generation. Coal-fired power
rose by an estimated 6% between 2010 and 2012, driven by growth in emerging
economies, and represents, "a fundamental threat to a low-carbon
future," the IEA said.
"The picture is as clear as it is disturbing: the carbon intensity of the
global energy supply has barely changed in 20 years, despite successful efforts
in deploying renewable energy," the IEA said in the annual report to the
Clean Energy Ministerial meeting, which brings together countries responsible
for 80% of greenhouse-gas emissions.
There is little happening to mitigate the environmental impact of the continued
dominance of coal in power generation, said the IEA. Many new coal-fired power
plants continue to use inefficient technologies, offsetting measures to close
some older and dirtier plants, it said. Projects to develop the technology that
would allow power plant carbon emissions to be captured and stored, preventing
them from contributing to global warming, have made little progress, it added.
Urgent action is needed to boost the number of carbon capture and storage
projects under development if the world is to succeed in capping the rise in
the global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius in the long term, the IEA
said.
Scientists have said that a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees
Celsius could have dramatic consequences for the environment, including
increasing the frequency of extreme weather events with severe social and
economic consequences.
To help the transition to a cleaner global energy system, the IEA urged
countries to implement clear regulations that encourage the switch to cleaner fuels
and infrastructure, and at least triple research funding, the IEA said.
However in the European Union, one of the world's keenest promoters of
renewable energy, low-carbon policy suffered a significant setback Tuesday as
lawmakers rejected a proposal to delay the auction of permits to emit carbon
dioxide.
The European Commission, the EU's executive body, had proposed the delay in
order to prop up the price of emissions allowances, which had fallen too low to
stimulate clean energy investment because of an oversupply.
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