Western governments are struggling to meet their targets for zero-emission vehicles, says ManMohan Sodhi at City University of London. There’s been a slowdown of sales that has a lot to do with the high cost of new EVs and the lack of charging infrastructure. Meanwhile, in China and India battery swapping – instead of charging your own battery – is on the rise. Swapping can take minutes. Knowing you can swap means you don’t need a big battery for … [Read more...]
At $2tn, investment in Clean Energy in 2024 is set to be double that for Fossil Fuels
A new report by the IEA reveals that global spending on clean energy technologies and infrastructure is on track to hit $2tn in 2024, driven largely by attractive cost reductions, improving supply chains, energy security, and government policies. This is despite higher financing costs for new projects. The combined investment in renewable power and grids only recently overtook the amount spent on fossil fuels, in 2023. 2024 will see it at double … [Read more...]
58 national Hydrogen strategies published: a step forward, but importers’ and exporters’ plans still need to match up
So far, 58 national hydrogen strategies and roadmaps have been published. Anne-Sophie Corbeau and Rio Kaswiyanto at the Center on Global Energy Policy take a close look, summarising their regularly updated database, the “National Hydrogen Strategies and Roadmap Tracker.” Only 12 countries are planning to become importers, mostly in Asia and Europe. Most of the others plan to be exporters. Many existing fossil fuel exporters want to preserve their … [Read more...]
Analysis of Clean Technology Manufacturing around the world: solar PV, wind, batteries, electrolysers, heat pumps
For every nation, clean technology manufacturing can bring economic security, employment, and resilience to clean energy transitions, says the IEA. The sector is now so significant that it’s also impacting overall GDP performance: in 2023, clean technology manufacturing alone accounted for around 4% of global GDP growth and nearly 10% of global investment growth. Here, the IEA summarises its first-of-its-kind “Energy Technology Perspectives … [Read more...]
10% of global GDP growth came from the new Clean Energy economy in 2023
The clean energy economy is making its mark on global GDP, explain Laura Cozzi, Timur GĂĽl, Thomas Spencer and Peter Levi at the IEA. It accounted for 10% of global GDP growth in 2023, primarily through three activities: manufacturing of clean energy technologies, deployment of clean power capacity, and clean equipment sales. Here, the authors present the in-depth results for four of the largest economies: the U.S, the EU, China and India, which … [Read more...]
Two years on, how is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine driving energy security and decarbonisation?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has boosted anxiety and therefore action on energy security and dependence on oil and gas. Sanctioning Russian oil and gas imports is an opportunity to replace fossil fuels with low or no carbon alternatives, an opportunity that is being taken. And renewables like wind and solar are by their nature local and therefore good for energy security (though with notable exceptions). Charles Hendry, Ellen Wald, Olga Khakova, … [Read more...]
The link between global GDP growth and CO2 emissions is weakening rapidly. Will emissions peak well before 2030?
Economic growth has been closely tied to rising greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial age. But data now clearly shows that that GDP growth and CO2 emissions are diverging. Siddharth Singh at the IEA presents the numbers. In advanced economies that divergence now seems locked in, with 2007 marking the moment of peak emissions (and not simply because of offshoring manufacturing). Even in developing economies GDP growth is far outpacing … [Read more...]
Scaling Hydrogen financing in Emerging Markets and Developing Countries
To meet the global target for clean hydrogen of 10-15% of energy use by 2050 we need to produce 40m tonnes by 2030. The rich OECD countries simply do not have the renewables resources to do it alone. So there must be a global effort to actively support hydrogen production in Emerging Markets and Developing Countries (EMDCs), explain Carolina Lopez Rocha and Dolf Gielen at the World Bank Group and Ignacio de Calonje at the IFC. They summarise the … [Read more...]
Another good year for Renewables. But can we triple Wind and Solar by 2030?
COP28 saw a calling for a tripling of renewable capacities by 2030, off the back of positive signs. In 2022, 80% of incremental power demand and 12% of electricity generated worldwide came from solar and wind. And the IEA believes solar generation can grow at 25% to 2030. But, as Ramnath Iyer at IEEFA explains, specific challenges must be met to ramp up successfully. The non-financial barriers include a lack of policy clarity, permitting, and … [Read more...]
The E-bike revolution is already underway (in developing countries): 280m micro-vehicles on the road and rising
While we’re all still waiting for the tipping point for EVs, it might have already happened for e-bikes – just not in rich countries. Car-owning nations will always struggle to switch to micro-mobility. But in China and other developing nations, owning a moped or bicycle is very common, so the switch is much easier, explain Muhammad Rizwan Azhar and Waqas Uzair at Edith Cowan University. It’s why, globally by 2022, there were over 280m electric … [Read more...]
Nearly 2,000 Hydrogen projects worldwide: IEA’s interactive tools give snapshot on progress, costs
The IEA has released new interactive data tools to track the development of low-emissions hydrogen production around the world. They provide a snapshot of progress on hydrogen production, with data on almost 2,000 projects that are either already in operation or have been announced. Most projects to date are concentrated in Europe and Australia, with a growing number planned in Africa, China, India, Latin America and the U.S. One of the tools … [Read more...]
Middle East & Africa to export Hydrogen to Europe? Better to make green Iron & Steel and export that
The MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) is well suited to making green hydrogen. There’s huge potential for powering green hydrogen production with cheap solar. And Europe wants to import it. But Soroush Basirat and Simon Nicholas at IEEFA argue that MENA should use the green hydrogen to make green iron and steel and export that. It already has an established direct reduced iron (DRI) sector: now powered by gas which can be swapped out for … [Read more...]
Europe is updating its price cap sanctions on Russian oil. How to make them work?
The EC has put forward proposals for tightening the implementation of a price cap on Russian oil exports. Brian O’Toole, Olga Khakova and Charles Lichfield at the Atlantic Council and Tomasz Wlostowski at EU Strategies review the performance of the price cap sanctions one year on from their implementation, and give recommendations for how to make them work better. Though most observers agree that the cap has limited export income for Russia this … [Read more...]
Nations are on track to meet their NDC targets. The catch is those targets aren’t high enough for net zero by 2050
Globally, current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) targets are within reach thanks to the increasing speed of clean energy transitions around the world. That’s as NDCs have, as planned, got more ambitious as nations have updated them every five years. The problem is current NDCs are still not ambitious enough to meet our actual 2050 net zero target. Daniel Wetzel, Gabriel Saive, Luca Lo Re and Alice Latella at the IEA summarise the … [Read more...]
Carbon Pricing: almost 25% of emissions now covered globally, but coverage and prices must rise further
Despite early scepticism, carbon pricing is making its mark globally. Today almost a quarter of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are covered by a carbon price, compared to just 7% ten years ago. 73 national and sub-national jurisdictions have carbon pricing, explain Joseph Pryor and Venkat Ramana Putti at The World Bank, writing for the Florence School of Regulation and quoting from the World Bank’s State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2023 … [Read more...]
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