Renewables will be the dominant source of power generation by 2025 “at the latest”, ending five decades of domination by coal, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said today.
Renewables were the only the part of the energy sector showing growth in 2020 with significant increases in the deployment of solar and offshore wind, IEA executive director Fatih Birol said.
“Renewables defeated Covid-19,” he said, as the IEA confirmed plans to publish on 18 May a roadmap on how the global energy sector can reach net zero emissions by 2050
Birol warned that carbon emissions this year looked likely to rebound, after a 7% drop in 2020, unless the Covid-19 pandemic is not contained, according to early data.
The extent of the potential increase was still unclear but China’s emissions were already above pre-Covid-19 levels on the back of a faster than expected recovery from last year’s economic downturn, he said.
Birol called on governments to put in place the “right” energy policies to accelerate the transition to clean sources as they rebuild their economies following the Covid-19 crisis and to halt the emissions rebound.
Governments needed to act to achieve a structural decline in coal demand.
“In 2021 we expect coal demand to bounce back with the recovering economy, and increased power demand,” he said.
The year could be pivotal to global action on the climate with more countries preparing to commit to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, following “a significant new political alignment on climate” in 2021, he added.
The IEA has agreed to work with the UK’s COP 26 president Alok Sharma ahead of the talks in Glasgow later this year and wanted IEA initiatives to act as a bridge to the talks.