Irena's new report explains why it is necessary to speed up the energy transition process immediately and focus on renewables and energy efficiency before it is too late.
Multiplying by six the speed at which renewable energy is spreading across the world: this, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), is the only way to achieve the decarbonisation targets set out in the Paris Agreement and keep climate mitigation under control.
In its new report "Global energy transformation: A roadmap to 2050", Irena demonstrates that renewable energy combined with energy efficiency can deliver more than 90 per cent of the CO2 reduction from fossil fuel combustion needed to limit the average rise in global temperature to "well below 2°C" compared to pre-industrial levels and avoid a point of no return for our planet.
According to Irena's analyses, taking into account not only current policies but also those planned, the world is not moving fast enough on limiting carbon dioxide emissions and would exhaust its energy-related carbon budget for keeping global warming below 2°C in less than 20 years. Achieving the target requires acting without delay. By 2050, cumulative CO2 emissions will need to be reduced by at least 470 gigatonnes, by redesigning interventions with more ambitious targets that, according to Irena, can be within reach thanks to safe, reliable, affordable and widely available technologies that would make it technically possible to revolutionise and render the energy sector sustainable.
By 2050, renewables could make up two thirds of the global energy mix, compared to 18 per cent in 2015, with significantly improved energy intensity. Over the same period, the share of renewables in the energy sector should rise from a quarter to 85 per cent, driven mainly by the growth of solar and wind. Although the energy sector has already seen significant decarbonisation, according to Irena it is necessary to accelerate further. The share of electricity consumed in end-use sectors (buildings, heating and transport) should double, rising from 20 per cent in 2015 to 40 per cent in 2050. Renewables will also need to expand significantly for direct uses such as clean fuel for transport.
The energy transition could also significantly boost overall employment, with renewables potentially creating more jobs than the fossil fuel industry could. In Irena's estimates, by 2050, the traditional energy sector would lose around 7.4 million jobs, against the 19 million that would be created in the renewables and energy efficiency sector, resulting in a net gain of 11.6 million new jobs. This is a trend that is already a reality, even if it has not yet reached these figures. In America, despite President Trump's steps backwards on renewables, the technologies used in the mining sector for coal extraction have certainly reduced the burden on miners and taken over in the most dangerous tasks, but they have allowed companies to achieve greater productivity by cutting jobs. On the other hand, still in the United States, in 2016, 300,000 new jobs — equal to 14 per cent of all new employment created in the US — were created in renewables and energy efficiency.