The economic recovery plans presented so far invest too little in renewables. CO2 emissions are forecast to reach unprecedented levels in 2023.
2023 is well on its way to becoming the year with the highest concentration of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere in human history, surpassing the record set in 2018. So say the projections released by the European International Energy Agency (Iea).
While 2020 saw CO2 emission levels fall, with the resumption of post-Covid activity they have begun to rise again. And the so-called "green recovery" may not be ambitious enough to avert climate disaster: as Fatih Birol, the Iea's executive director, points out, "of more than 16 billion dollars spent in recovery plans, only 2 per cent is earmarked for investment in clean energy." Indeed, the majority of resources are tied to healthcare spending and emergency support for businesses and households. Around 2,300 billion dollars are allocated to actual economic recovery, of which only 380 billion relate to sustainable energy projects. "This is nowhere near enough," Birol concluded.
The increase in CO2 emissions forecast for 2023 will be "unprecedented" and such as "to jeopardise the targets set out in the Paris Agreement on climate": according to the agency, the problem does not lie solely with the wealthier countries — or at least not only — such as the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea, which are moving, slowly, in the right direction.
Emerging economies, by contrast, are lagging significantly behind: India, Indonesia, and the whole of Latin America. Furthermore, among industrialised countries, China is the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases: it is investing heavily in renewable energy, yet at the same time is still channelling large amounts of public money into coal.
For Birol and colleagues, around 90 per cent of emissions growth will come from less industrialised economies: for this reason it is essential to "help them invest in green energy". The money is there, and the agency director's finger is pointed at the International Monetary Fund and, more broadly, at the wealthier economies. These are called upon to guarantee at least 100 billion dollars a year towards developing countries in order to help them reduce CO2 emissions and cope with the impacts of extreme weather conditions.
The International Energy Agency is thus anticipating a theme to be discussed at the table of the forthcoming Cop 26, scheduled in Glasgow in November 2021. That of mobilising global investment to be redirected towards renewable energy. To save the planet, but also for economic reasons: cutting emissions in developing countries, the Iea says, is cheaper than doing so in the industrialised world.
While the "brown economy" — that is, the economy dependent on the heavy use of fossil fuels — has come back roaring after the recession caused by the coronavirus, the green economy is still in its development phase. According to Finance for biodiversity initiative (F4b), a Switzerland-based organisation committed to the protection of biodiversity, only one tenth of all public economic stimulus injected globally for the post-pandemic recovery would have a beneficial impact on the climate and environment, while around double that amount would have a harmful impact.
F4b argues this occurs because climate and nature are treated as two separate entities on which to invest. On the one hand, of the 500 billion euros in economic stimulus granted across ten European countries and analysed by the organisation, 98 per cent of climate-related spending would effectively reduce CO2 emissions; on the other, only 46 per cent (around 40 billion euros) of nature-related spending will have a positive impact on it. This means that the bulk of natural capital spending — 47 billion euros — risks in fact damaging nature itself and biodiversity. Investments in solutions such as reforestation, urban greening and wetland restoration, which offer both economic and environmental benefits, account for a mere 1 per cent of stimulus packages.
If policymakers continue to neglect these aspects, the substantial investments envisaged by recovery plans worldwide will count for little. Some infrastructure will likely be built, businesses and households will have enough to get by for a few years, but when the incentives run out it will be too late to build a sustainable future.