Growth of renewable energy not fast enough

Today until June 7, clean energy experts, practitioners, policymakers, implementers, and financiers will gather in Manila for the annual Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) organized by the Asian Development Bank. This year’s theme is “Accelerating the Clean Energy Transition and Ensuring Energy Security and Affordability—Time for Urgent Action Now.”

The term “accelerating” is thrown about each year by ACEF in the context of building a clean energy future in the region. But this should not be about some distant future. We are already seeing and experiencing the devastating effects of climate change, such as extreme climate events and disasters. To avoid a climate catastrophe, countries agreed under the Paris Agreement to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius level of warming. This requires a 45-percent reduction of global emissions by 2030 and reaching zero emissions by 2050. This means a rapid, just, and equitable phasing out of fossil fuels and replacing them with clean, renewable energy systems, particularly solar and wind.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), without strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change risks and adverse impacts will escalate with increasing global warming. The latest IPCC report has found that emissions have increased global average temperatures by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius. Unless countries drastically transform their economies and immediately transition away from fossil fuels, the world is likely to surpass the 1.5 degrees Celsius climate threshold by the early 2030s.

It is not acceptable to play fast and loose with the climate goal of transitioning to clean energy. The task at hand is not merely to accelerate the transition but to rapidly transition with clear targets and timetables and within a deadline consistent with keeping temperature rise below the threshold.

The phase-out of coal, the single biggest source of global temperature increase, is crucial to the Paris Agreement’s goal to reduce emissions. Paris requires coal to be phased out by 2030 in the OECD countries and by 2040 in the rest of the world.

A rapid decline in coal use and production in Asia and total coal phase-out by 2035 needs to happen to enable ambitious climate mitigation actions and climate-resilient development. The focus of the coal market has been shifting to Asia. Since the 2000s, coal consumption has grown strongly in China, India, and Southeast Asia. Achieving Asia’s just transition to clean energy requires significant financing to rapidly phase out coal and enable the rapid integration of more renewable energy capacity, particularly wind and solar, into the energy mix in the region. International and Asian public financial institutions must make an immediate, wholesale shift from fossil fuel financing to renewable energy financing. It is deplorable that public financial institutions, as well as private banks, continue to finance and underwrite fossil fuel projects. This is despite warnings that there is no more room for new oil, gas, and coal within this decade if we want to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Governments touting the urgency of a clean energy transition can make this happen quickly if they will shift all energy subsidies and financing to renewables now. Developed countries must fully deliver on their climate finance obligations, part of which is funding rapid and just energy transitions in developing countries in Asia and the rest of the Global South.

In Asia, millions of people still lack access to electricity, while many more are making do with unreliable but costly electricity or dirty fuel that leads to premature deaths. Renewable energy is cheaper than coal and other fossil fuels, particularly gas, which the fossil fuel industry and its enablers are touting as a necessary transition fuel to replace coal. Renewables can provide accessible and affordable power for all.

Renewables, particularly solar and wind, are growing fast. The latest data show that wind and solar are growing faster than any other sources of electricity in history. A report even stated that the rise of wind and solar has been stemming the growth of fossil fuel power, which would have been 22 percent higher in 2023 without them. Unfortunately, the growth of renewables is not fast enough. An agreement was reached among governments at COP28 to triple renewables by 2030. This should be the minimum target. We need to build and deploy renewable energy urgently, at the scale and speed required to fully supplant fossil fuels in the energy mix, meet the increase in energy demand in the coming year and have 100 percent renewable energy by even before 2050. There is vast untapped potential in Asian countries, more than enough for this to happen.

Lidy Nacpil is coordinator of Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development.