Eliminate CO emissions2 that are warming the planet will require further innovation, technological as well as financial: around thirty energy or climate ministers are working until Wednesday in Paris on ways to finance the gigantic investments necessary for the energy and climate transformation.
Faced with the warming that is “happening” at the moment, the energy world is still too much in ” as usual ‘ and must evolve towards greater ‘innovation’, US President John Kerry’s climate envoy ordered during the 50s.E anniversary of the founding of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
“It is time for diplomats and environment ministers to give way to energy, industry and research ministers” to advance the fight against global warming, added Ireland’s climate and environment minister Eamon Ryan.
Mr Ryan is co-chairing this first high-level international meeting since COP28 in December in Dubai, where the world agreed to “transition” away from fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), which emit greenhouse gases and are responsible for global warming.
“We need to deploy existing, profitable technologies as quickly as possible,” particularly in renewables, and “we need to bring new technologies to market faster than we currently do,” Mr. Kerry said.
He meant in particular technologies, not all proven ones, that allow saving or using energy more efficiently, capturing CO2store electricity or produce hydrogen.
“Why? Because this year is hotter than last year and next year will be hotter than this year. It’s happening and it’s guaranteed by science,” he told an audience of energy and climate ministers gathered by the IEA.
“While there has been a huge increase in clean energies such as wind and solar, this is not enough to meet the targets set for 2050,” added IEA Director Fatih Birol.
“We need to support technologies that are not yet on the market” and the industry that produces them, he added.
Mr. Birol also called on governments to invest in innovation.
The massive investments that need to be made, according to European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, are not only about renewable energies, but also about “interconnection networks”, “companies pure technique » (clean technologies) and “supply chains”.
Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of Economy, Industry and Energy, co-chairman of the meeting, pleaded for more creativity in finance and promoted the “European Capital Markets Union” project. », supported by French President Emmanuel Macron to finance the transition in Europe.
“In Europe, we can no longer rely on public debt (…), we have to rely on private financing” to accelerate the transition, he said. “We need a Capital Markets Union as soon as possible.”
“No More Coal Power Plants”
Mr Kerry praised the progress of China, which is currently building “more renewable electricity capacity than the entire world combined”.
However, he lamented that in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, the implementation of “the equivalent of 500 gigawatts of coal-fired power generation capacity” is planned in the coming years.
“Knowing what we know and knowing the reality of climate change, not a single coal-fired power plant releasing CO2 into the atmosphere should be operating in the world today,” said John Kerry.
This will “undo” everything “that has been done in Europe and the United States for 15 years to reduce CO emissions2 “, according to him.
To develop alternative energies to fossil fuels, global investment (public and private) will need to reach $4.5 trillion annually by 2030, according to the IEA, including “at least $2.2 trillion annually in emerging and developing countries.
The IEA, an intergovernmental organization attached to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), made up of mainly oil-importing countries, was created in the midst of the oil crisis of the 1970s to organize supplies.
The meeting is due to conclude on Wednesday with a communique that sets out the IEA’s mandate “for the next two years”.