Are world governments acting with enough urgency to meet climate targets? A new report by UK-based energy think tank Ember, released to coincide with the ongoing COP29 conference in Baku, suggests they aren’t, at least as far as boosting the capacity of renewable energy is concerned.
A year after the global goal to triple renewables by 2030 was agreed at COP28, national targets by governments are almost unchanged, the report notes. According to the think tank, the national targets still add up to just over a doubling of the global renewables capacity by 2030. “In that time, solar’s prospects have improved, leading to upgrades in market forecasts for renewables by 2030,” adds the report, released on Tuesday.
The COP — or Conference of the Parties — is the supreme decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), which seeks to limit greenhouse gas emissions to “a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a time frame which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development”. The UNFCC has been ratified by 198 countries. COP29 is being hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11-November 22.
The report by Ember — a not-for-profit think tank that “aims to accelerate the clean energy transition with data and policy” — analysed national 2030 renewable capacity targets for 96 countries and the European Union as a bloc. A press release accompanying the report notes that these countries “collectively account for 96% of the world’s renewable capacity, 95% of global electricity sector demand and 94% of global power sector emissions”. Out of these 96 countries, 83 have renewable capacity targets for 2030, the report notes.
‘Rapid Action’ Needed
Ember notes in its report that, at COP28, over 130 countries signed a pledge to “contribute to tripling global renewable energy capacity” by 2030. “By October 2024, only eight countries have updated their renewable targets, resulting in just a 4 GW increase in overall renewable energy targets globally,” it adds.
“The current sum of 2030 national renewable targets is 7,242 GW, a 2.1x increase from the 3,379 GW capacity recorded in 2022. Reaching a global tripling of renewables would require an additional 3,758 GW of capacity installed by 2030,” Ember notes.
Katye Altieri, Electricity Analyst at Ember, notes in the press release that “renewables markets have moved”, even as “governments’ ambitions have not”. “The growth of renewables is exceeding expectations every year and this is combined with falling prices,” Altieri says. “Markets are booming but there’s still a lack of ambition from countries.”
The think tank says unlocking the tripling goal “needs rapid action”. “The pace of the market, falling prices and increased technological efficiency of renewables should give governments confidence to increase their ambitions and update their targets,” it adds. “COP29 and the upcoming 2025 update of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) present an ideal opportunity to close the gap between where national targets are, and what is needed to meet or exceed a global tripling goal.”
NDCs are individual climate action plans that countries submit to the UN under the 2016 Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.