FINANCING & ADVANCING THE CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION
By Jona Cordonier Gehring
The Sustainable Energy Imperative
Our world is facing an existential climate emergency. Rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are causing rapid increases in average temperatures on Earth, and the impacts of this human-induced climate change which are already being felt worldwide are only becoming more dangerous over time. As the GHG emissions especially from global energy production and consumption patterns are a major contributor to climate change, humanity must tackle the sustainable energy imperative – there is an urgent need to identify, develop, adopt, and deploy the technologies for a clean energy transition worldwide.
To promote finance and adoption of technologies that can optimize the clean energy transition, scaling up sustainable energy generation faster, more reliably and at lower cost, we need new policies and laws in the interests of current and future generations. This short article summarises a recent study, The Sustainable Energy Imperative: A Future Generations Perspective on Technologies Leading the Clean Energy Transition [insert link] led young mathematicians, physicists and climate activists from the Global Youth Council on Science, Law and Sustainability which reviews, summarises and models, mathematically, sustainable energy technologies in the transition to net zero global emissions (and beyond), tracking rising levels of finance and investment in these technologies, and their adoption worldwide. In particular, we focus on how to incentivize clean and renewable energy capacity expansion in the next five years, and in our generation.
Global Climate Change as the Challenge of our Century
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) GHG emissions, which must be halved this decade in order to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C, are still instead increasing. (IPCC GST 2023) Annual emissions already exceed 40 Gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, with a 66% chance of average increases in world temperatures reaching 2.8°C or higher by 2050.
As IPCC explains in its Sixth Assessment Report: “Globally, climate change is increasingly causing injuries, illness, malnutrition, threats to physical and mental health and well-being, and even deaths (and) climate change impacts are expected to intensify with additional warming… Where trends intersect they can reinforce each other, intensifying risks and impacts, which affect the poor and most vulnerable people the hardest.” (IPCC VI 2021)
Youth are already among those suffering the most due to climate change, already, and we shall face increasingly severe impacts over time. As IPCC reports, “future generations are more likely to be exposed and vulnerable to climate change and related risks such as flooding, heat stress, water scarcity, poverty, and hunger” (IPCC VI 2022). One in five children are already living in extreme poverty, and between 68-132 million additional people will face poverty by 2030 due to climate change. According to the IPCC, children aged ten or younger in the year 2020 are projected to experience a nearly four-fold increase in extreme events under 1.5°C of global warming by 2100. Already, typhoons, hurricanes and extreme weather disasters caused $210 billion in damage in 2020, and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that disaster-related losses exceeded US $280 billion in 2021 alone.
Further, if warming exceeds 1.5 °C, Arctic sea ice will deplete 10 times faster and sea level rise could intensify, causing rapid erosion of coasts and drowning small island countries. As IPCC further explains, by 2050 “more than a billion people living in low-lying coastal cities and settlements globally are projected to be at risk from coastal-specific climate hazards…” (IPCC VI 2022) In a world beyond 2°C warming, the frequency of hurricanes and extreme events increases by 36%, with annual flood damage exceeding US$ 11.7 trillion. As IPCC projects under their high vulnerability-high warming scenario, up to 183 million additional people risk undernourishment in low-income countries due to climate change by 2050, with likely increases in poverty and inequality, as well as involuntary migration of people, due to climate-driven increases in the frequency and strength of regional wildfires, increased floods and droughts, and an increase in temperature-related incidences of vector-borne, water-borne and food-borne diseases such as dengue, malaria, cholera and Rift Valley Fever. (IPCC VI 2021)
Climate change will also affect water quality and availability for hygiene, food production and ecosystems due to droughts and desertification. As IPCC warns, globally “800 million to 3 billion people are projected to experience chronic water scarcity due to droughts at 2°C warming… Today’s young people and future generations will also witness stronger negative effects of climate change on food production and availability. The warmer it gets, the more difficult it will become to grow or produce, transport, distribute, buy, and store food… the number of people suffering from hunger in 2050 will range from 8 million to up to 80 million people.” (IPCC VI 2022)
Further, climate change threatens all species and ecosystems, not just people. According to IPCC, “increasing heat and extreme weather are driving plants and animals on land and in the ocean towards the poles, to higher altitudes, or to the deeper ocean waters. Many species are reaching limits in their ability to adapt to climate change, and those that cannot adjust or move fast enough are at risk of extinction.” (IPCC VI 2022) While 20% of terrestrial ecosystems worldwide are already degraded, deforestation and fires have destroyed over 420 million hectares of global total forest since 1990, a 9.7% decrease in global forests, also releasing an additional 105 Gigatonnes of additional C02 emissions.
As the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has noted, without international science and technology cooperation, the transition to net zero global emissions could be delayed by decades, and these are decades that we simply cannot afford. (UNEP 2021) However, with immediate and major changes, drastic impacts including for future generations can still be prevented. As IPCC further explains: “Actions taken now to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases drastically and adapt to a changing climate will have a profound effect on… health, well-being, and security” (IPCC VI 2022).
Access to Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable and Modern Energy
Current climate change challenges present extremely serious threats, but also opportunities for a transition to a different kind of growth – towards cleaner, sustainable energy technologies which do not generate the same levels of climate-change-inducing GHG emissions. Indeed, one of the world’s highest priorities, adopted in 2015 as part of the UN General Assembly’s Agenda for 2030 and the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”, under which countries seek to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related disasters, to integrate climate change measures into policies and planning, and to build knowledge and capacity. (UN 2015) They also commit to implementing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to raising capacity for planning and management. In reference to SDG 13, countries recognise the UNFCCC as the main intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change, and under the UNFCCC 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming “well under 2 °C”. However, even if all current pledges were met, we still risk surpassing a 2.7 °C temperature increase by the end of the century. As of 2020, many countries are also urgently adopting and implementing national climate change adaptation plans. SDG 13 is supported and complemented by SDG 7, under which countries agree to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.” (UN 2015) Under SDG 7, countries agreed on several crucial targets, including ensuring universal access to modern energy; increasing the global percentage of renewable energy; and doubling the improvement in energy efficiency. They also prioritise the need to promote access to research, technology and investments in clean energy; and to expand and upgrade energy services for developing countries. These targets include access to affordable and reliable energy while increasing the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, while also focusing on improving energy efficiency, international cooperation and investment in clean energy infrastructure. (UN 2015)
To realise these opportunities, and keep with countries’ commitments in the Paris Agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the International Energy Agency (IEA), IPCC and many countries are calling for exponential increases in renewable energy capacity, including in the UNFCCC 28th Conference of the Parties in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in December 2023. (UNFCCC 2023) As IRENA explains, “global emissions, which must be halved this decade to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C, are still increasing. The energy crisis and threat of a global food crisis that the world now faces underline the equal urgency of increasing the affordability, accessibility, resilience, and security of the supply of humanity’s most essential commodities and services. Transitions to sustainability can reduce the likelihood of such crises occurring in future. International collaboration will be critical to success, given the global scale and fast pace of change required. Action by governments and businesses individually is necessary, but not sufficient. Well-targeted international collaboration can make low carbon transitions faster, less difficult, and lower cost.” (IRENA 2022)
Renewable energy is a crucial cornerstone of this collaboration. (IRENA 2022) Increasingly, countries, businesses and the entire research and development community worldwide, driven by many demands, are coming to recognise a global sustainable energy imperative. Improving access to sustainable, renewable energy sources is important worldwide, especially for youth. According to UN DESA in accordance with global Sustainable Development Goal 7, “sustainable energy is a critical enabler and dramatically improves the quality, accessibility and reliability of services,” and youth rely on these services for survival, development and well-being. Further, as the UN explains, “Health centres and schools require energy for lighting, operating medical devices and life-saving procedures, cooking, heating, cooling and digital connectivity… Sustainable energy measures provide considerable benefits…” (UN DESA SDG 7 2023) Basically, as UN DESA underlines, while “access to electricity and clean cooking fuels has improved in many parts of the world… 675 million people are yet to be connected to the grids and 2.3 billion are still cooking with unsafe and polluting fuels.” As they note, conflicts and economic instability in our world are causing “significant volatility in energy prices, leading some countries to raise investments in renewables and others to increase reliance on coal, putting the green transition at risk.” If the current pace continues, the UN notes, about 660 million people will still lack access to electricity and close to 2 billion people will continue to rely on polluting fuels and technologies for cooking by 2030. “To ensure access to energy for all by 2030, we must accelerate electrification, increase investments in renewable energy sources and invest in improving electricity grids.” (UN DESA SDG 7 2023).
Under the Paris Agreement, countries make net zero pledges in their Nationally Determined Contributions to the global response to climate change, and most countries have committed to achieving net zero emissions by around the middle century, as have many businesses, which hopefully leads us to a lower emissions trajectory now than they did before. As IRENA has proposed, “By aligning and coordinating actions internationally, countries and businesses can accelerate innovation, create stronger signals for investment and larger economies of scale, and establish level playing fields where needed to ensure that competition is a driver of the transition and not a brake. International assistance, finance, and the sharing of best practices can support the widespread adoption of effective policies and available technologies. International infrastructure can enable cross-border flows of clean energy. Without international collaboration, the transition to net zero global emissions could be delayed by decades.” However, “the world remains far off track to meet internationally-agreed climate change goals, despite action being taken in many areas.” (IRENA Net Zero by 2050 2022) A great deal more effort is needed, including through the development and financing of net zero energy sources, especially renewable energy technologies.
A Future Generations Perspective on Technologies Leading the Clean Energy Transition
In this context, young mathematicians, physicists and climate activists from GYC-SLS have decided to survey progress in clean energy science and technology, comparing and contrasting opportunities for sustainable energy generation across case studies of solar, wind, tidal, hydroelectric and geothermal technologies. In our scoping research, we are also examining examined financing and adoption trends, modelling incentives for sustainable energy production and consumption across the same technologies. We especially highlight emerging developments among technologies with significant potential to become ‘game-changers’, focusing on the potential breakthroughs for commercialisation of fusion power and carbon containment and removal, including in CO2 and atmospheric methane removal. Our study, which is only an initial survey, explores which sectors of renewables are experiencing excitingly high levels of growth in the last two decades and tracks trends in public and private investment. Through modelling, we consider, based on IEA and IRENA sources, whether renewables are surpassing investment in oil and gas, and becoming significant. We also review how further increases, according to IPCC, UNFCCC and other data, may be required to meet 2030 net zero global targets, exploring options for further diversification and more consistent forms of clean, renewable energy. We particularly explore investment in game-changing clean energy technologies such as fusion power or potentially green hydrogen, as well as carbon containment and removal, and their potential as longer-term, consistent clean energy solutions to rising demand.
To us, still in our teens, it is only more exciting that a clean energy game-changer could be – if we invest now at scale – only 20 years away. With respect, that’s our lifetime. We are the fusion generation.
Overall, we call for increased investment in these fields, particularly in key technologies which hold high potential, and offers certain early signs of hope. With higher ambition and public awareness campaigns (including for consumers), backed by new research, development, adoption and finance on all levels, we still may have a chance to respond globally to scale up the sustainable energy imperative. As a contribution, our study especially focuses on which technologies that are leading the clean energy transition, and how to accelerate them. Our future, and perhaps even the future of all life on Earth, depends on finding the finance and the action at scale, starting right now.
Jona’s article was published by the University of Cambridge Energy IRC. Read his blog here: https://www.energy.cam.ac.uk/blog/blog-sustainable-energy-imperative-future-generations-perspective-technologies-leading-clean
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