International Energy Agency says pandemic recovery to drive all-time high emissions

Countries have allocated more than $16 trillion (€14 trillion) in financial assistance throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, mostly in the form of emergency financial help for workers and businesses.

The IEASustainable recovery Tracker found that only $380 billion of this was provided for clean energy projects.

If all the spending plans come to fruition, global carbon emissions will reach a record level in 2023 and continue to rise in the following years, the intergovernmental agency said.

Overall carbon pollution would be 3.5 billion tonnes higher than a scenario in which economies adhere to the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature target of the Paris climate agreement, it said.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said: “Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis, many governments may have talked about the importance of building back to the better for a cleaner future, but many of them have yet to put their money,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

The United Nation says that to maintain the 1.5C temperature target, average emissions must fall by more than seven percent per year through 2030.

Although pandemic containment and travel restrictions led to a brief drop in carbon pollution last year, concentrations of planet-warming gases in Earth’s atmosphere are still increasing.

With record-breaking heatwaves pounding North America and parts of northern Europe engulfed in unprecedented flooding, the impacts of climate change are hitting developed economies more severely than ever before. .

The IEA said the investment measures announced in G20 Countries are expected to meet 60% of the spending needed to keep Paris temperature targets within reach.

Among developing countries, this number drops to just 20%, as countries hit hard by Covid-19 prioritize emergency health and welfare spending over sustainable investment, analysis shows.

In June, the IEA released its clean investment report, which found that green investment should grow more than sevenfold annually – from less than $150 billion in 2020 to more than $1 trillion by 2020. 2030 if the world reaches carbon neutrality by 2050.

– New emissions record – Last week, more than 100 developing countries called on wealthy economies to make good on their decades-old promise of delivering $100 billion a year to countries on the front lines of the climate change. climate change.

Writing ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, the countries also urged historic polluters to rapidly decarbonise their economies while helping others do the same.

Overall, the IEA believes that all countries are missing out on the opportunity to redirect private and public funds to green projects that deliver three climate, health and economic benefits.

Not only is investment in clean energy still far from what is needed to put the world on track to net zero emissions by mid-century, but it is not even enough to prevent global emissions from rising to new record levels.”

“Governments need to accelerate spending and policy action to meet the commitments they made in Paris in 2015 – including the critical financing of advanced economies for developing world.”