More than 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits during the lockdown. Among their number will be workers who, while sitting at home, could be trained up with useful skills they can use when the lockdowns end. You just need to identify where the big skills gaps in the economy are. Stephen Mushegan and Claire McKenna at RMI look at buildings refits and electrification, where like in most countries huge emissions reduction targets … [Read more...]
IRENA’s Global Renewables Outlook and how Europe can lead the way
If the coronavirus slump has knocked everything off track IRENA’s first ever Global Renewables Outlook is a timely reminder of what that track should look like. It can help policymakers design stimuli packages that will get us back onto it, and even accelerate the transition. IRENA’s Gayathri Prakash, Nicholas Wagner and Ricardo Gorini run through the comprehensive report’s main recommendations. Annual investment, shares and GW targets to 2030 … [Read more...]
How Eurobonds can raise trillions for recovery and the Green Deal
EU nations have lined up for and against any form of Eurobonds, including Coronabonds, that would mutualise vast amounts of debt across all the member states. Yet vast amounts are needed to recover from this unexpected and unprecedented global slump caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. Where will it come from? Luca Bonaccorsi at Transport & Environment explains EC president Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal for how the EU budget (on its own, … [Read more...]
Bounceback or Recession? Modelling the impact on electricity prices to 2025
Carlos Perez Linkenheil at Energy Brainpool models three scenarios to understand the factors that are having the biggest impact on – and thereby make predictions for - electricity prices, revenues, energy source merit order, and emissions in the EU. Other parameters in the scope of their analysis include oil prices, gas prices, commodities markets, carbon taxes, and the EUA/emissions market. Clearly, collapsing prices are profoundly distorting … [Read more...]
U.S.: Counting Renewables jobs and projects under threat, what can be done and why
All sectors across all economies are trying to add up their potential job losses and projects in jeopardy, then telling their governments to prioritise them for support. Mike Jacobs at the Union of Concerned Scientists looks at renewables in the U.S. He quotes news reports that over 100,000 workers in this fast-growing industry filed for unemployment in March 2020. On top of that, the already planned expiry and phase-down of certain targeted … [Read more...]
EU needs clear European Green and Solidarity Pact by September
Stark predictions around the unprecedented economic challenges facing Europe (and the world) are starting to take shape. The possible solutions must keep pace with them. Here, Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate lays out those challenges and robust policy answers that can keep us on a net-zero emissions track while stimulating economies, creating jobs, and maintaining social justice. It’s no surprise that there is … [Read more...]
Designing the Covid-19 stimulus: what the 2008 crisis can teach us
Policy makers around the world are hearing a lot of advice on how to design their stimulus packages. This comes from the IEA where Fatih Birol lays out five fundamental lessons we can learn from the stimulus packages that came out of the 2008 global financial crisis. His main headings are: Build on what you already have – and think big (e.g. feed-in tariffs, production tax credits); Choose technologies that are ready for the big time (e.g. wind, … [Read more...]
Accelerate EV infra, buildings refits to use electricity’s looming spare capacity
How do we turn the pandemic downturn into an executable opportunity, above and beyond targets and promises? Chris Nelder at RMI presents data on how electricity load has dropped during the lockdown in the U.S. That load will return when the economy recovers. In the interim capacity will go unused. New capacity in the pipeline could be delayed. Nelder suggests policy makers grasp the opportunity to fill that gap and use that capacity by directing … [Read more...]
Stimulus opportunity: Hand all carbon taxes to households
Governments worldwide now have the opportunity to radically rethink how household consumption can be stimulated, and where that money can come from. And every serious politician knows a radical change in fiscal policy is a rare opportunity to shape perceptions and values. This could be that moment for carbon taxes. Gerard Wynn at IEEFA first notes the success they have had in reducing emissions in the EU. With a rise in the CO2 price on the … [Read more...]
Behaviour Change: Covid-19 lockdown kicks open the door to a net-zero pathway
Working from home and minimal travel are “no brainer” ways to drastically reduce emissions. They’ve never been tried on a nationwide scale anywhere. Now they are, everywhere. Everyone is doing their best to make it work. Next, food waste should also be in decline, hopefully. Even if panic stockpiling happens, people’s mindsets are being changed as they try to use everything they’ve bought. The act of re-thinking what and how much we eat, in every … [Read more...]
IEA: Three ways governments can keep Renewables growth on track
Before the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 was set to be another record year for renewables installations. That is now looking very unlikely. Heymi Bahar at the IEA identifies three main challenges facing the growth of renewables due to the global economic consequences of the pandemic: Supply chain disruptions, anywhere, will surely lead to delays in completing projects everywhere; Compounding those delays, major renewables incentives expire at the … [Read more...]
Will China build more Coal to stimulate the economy?
Could China ramp up coal generation – of the order of hundreds of GW by 2030 - as part of its efforts to stimulate its economy and recover from the coronavirus slump? The thinking is that building a coal plant converts faster into economic growth than the equivalent spent on renewables. In the previous decade, building coal plants was an effective part of China’s economic growth plan that secured its place as the world’s second largest economy. … [Read more...]
Utilities can help their central banks, “loaning” electricity during the slump
The coronavirus slump is forcing governments around the world to inject large amounts of cash into the hands of consumers and businesses, until this is all over. In the U.S. it’s $2tn. Catherine Wolfram at the Haas School of Business suggests a way to cut that bill, easing the pressure on central bankers. Utilities (electricity, water, gas) should allow customers to defer payment (instead of using valuable bailout money to pay the utilities). The … [Read more...]
Covid-19 and the EU car industry: any support should lock in EV targets
The coronavirus slump has come suddenly and hit hard. The deep thinking has already begun on the economics needed to turn around that slump without damaging our rising emissions ambitions. Julia Poliscanova at Transport & Environment looks at the car industry. Some have called for the new CO2 standards coming in 2020 to be postponed (though, notably, VW and BMW still support them). She explains that total car sales were already declining in … [Read more...]
Coronavirus bailouts should be explicit, not hidden by CO2 tax cuts. And nothing for Oil
Many industries will be pleading their case for a Coronavirus bailout. Severin Borenstein at the Energy Institute at Haas explains why the oil industry should not be one of them. Oil prices, already on the slide, are indeed sinking lower thanks to the pandemic. But decarbonisation should be sending them that way anyway. And the oil price has always be artificially high thanks to the OPEC cartel and weak or complicit “competition” from non-OPEC … [Read more...]
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