The International Energy Agency (IEA) said Thursday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its influence on the energy crisis facing the West could accelerate the transition to renewable energy.
This was detailed by the IEA in its report ‘World Energy Outlook’, in which it pointed to the year 2025 as the possible peak of global emissions.
This would be possible because the current energy crisis «is causing an impact of unprecedented breadth and complexity», according to the IEA, which has stressed the vulnerability of energy markets as a «reminder of the fragility and unsustainability of the global energy system».
«Along with short-term measures to try to protect consumers from the impacts of the crisis, many governments are now taking longer-term measures. Some are seeking to increase or diversify oil and gas supplies, and many are seeking to accelerate structural changes,» wields a statement released by the agency.
The report highlights the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, Japan’s ‘Green Transformation’ (GX) program, «ambitious» clean energy targets in India and China, and the European Union’s ‘Fit for 55’ and ‘REPowerEU’ packages as «the most notable responses» to the energy crisis.
These moves would help boost global investment in clean energy by more than €2 billion a year by 2030, an increase of more than 50 percent from 2022, the brief said.
«As markets rebalance in this scenario, the advantage to coal from the current crisis is temporary, as renewables, backed by nuclear power, experience sustained gains,» the IEA explains.
All in all, the report notes that Russia has so far been the world’s largest exporter of fossil fuels. However, its invasion of Ukraine is causing «a total reorientation of world energy trade,» leaving it in a «much diminished» position.
The rift between Europe and Russia has come at «a speed few imagined possible» and is bringing about «major changes.» For this reason, the agency has stressed the need for «a new energy security paradigm to ensure reliability and affordability» that also includes a reduction in emissions.
«As the world moves forward from the current energy crisis, it must avoid new vulnerabilities arising from critical high and volatile mineral prices or highly concentrated clean energy supply chains,» the IEA urged states in its report.
However, despite these changes, the IEA assumes global warming of 2.5 degrees Celsius by the year 2100, thus failing to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming target that is intended to help prevent the severe effects of climate change.
