Wednesday 13 April 2022

Governmental clean energy spending rose by 50% in Covid recovery

To recover from Covid-19, governments’ clean energy spending has hiked by 50%.

That’s according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which has revealed that since October of last year, spending hit more than $710 billion (£546bn).

This level of spending is 40% more than the global green spending by governments in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

However, its new report does caveat this with the fact that there are huge imbalances in spending throughout different regions.

Developed countries’ economies represent the majority of the spending, with an aim set to spend $370 billion (£284.5bn) before the end of 2023 – an amount the IEA says aligns with its pathway to net zero by 2050.

Developing economies, however, represent just one-tenth of the spending made by their developed counterparts. These economies plan to invest around $52 billion (£39.9bn) by the end of 2023, which the Agency warns is far off what will be required to keep net zero aims alive.

The report stresses that this gap will only widen, with the cost of food and fuel sky-high due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Fatih Birol, IEA Executive Director, explains: “Countries where clean energy is at the heart of recovery plans are keeping alive the possibility of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 – but challenging financial and economic conditions have undermined public resources in much of the rest of the world.”

The study calls on more international cooperation to keep spending levels where they need to be, with Dr Birol adding: “The world still needs to massively expand its clean energy deployment efforts throughout this decade, first and foremost in developing economies, if we are going to preserve the hope of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C.”