IEA: The World Will Struggle to Triple Its Renewable Energy Capacity by 2030

The world is still off track to reach a key goal set at the COP28 climate summit last year—tripling renewables capacity by 2030, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report on Tuesday.

At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai at the end of 2023, nearly 200 countries made a collective pledge to triple global renewable capacity by 2030, aiming to keep within reach the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.  

Now the new IEA analysis showed that the ambitions and implementation plans of the countries are not yet in line with this key goal.

Official commitments in the countries’ plans – the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as they are officially known – currently amount to 1,300 gigawatts (GW). That’s just 12% of what is required to meet the global tripling objective set in Dubai, the IEA said today. The tripling of the pledge requires an installed renewable capacity of at least 11,000 GW by 2030.

Of the 194 NDCs previously submitted, only 14 include explicit targets for total renewable power capacity for 2030, the IEA said.

Government ambitions significantly exceed what is in existing NDCs, while the current levels of ambition vary drastically across countries, according to the agency’s analysis.

Moreover, the scale and speed of renewables rollout in China will be “crucial for the overall pace of global deployment through 2030,” the IEA noted.

Now is the time for countries to set out more ambitious renewables targets in their respective NDCs, it added.  

“This report makes clear that the tripling target is ambitious but achievable – though only if governments quickly turn promises into plans of action,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.

Progress in renewable energy uptake in the largest energy-consuming sectors slowed globally in 2023, amid high interest rates, supply-chain issues, and regulatory and policy uncertainties in the wake of the energy crisis, renewable energy think tank REN21 said in a report last week.

Earlier this year, REN21 said that despite record investments in renewables, the current funding for clean energy deployment is insufficient for the world to reach the 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway under the Paris Agreement.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

• OPEC Resolves Compensation Plans for Overproducing Members
• Extreme Weather and Red Sea Crisis Trigger Commodities Rally
• 76% of Small Offshore Oil Companies at Risk