One of the world’s foremost energy experts has warned the world has only six months in which to change the course of the climate crisis and prevent a post-COVID-19 rebound in greenhouse gas emissions that would overwhelm efforts to stave off a climate catastrophe.
“This year is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound said Dr Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The Guardian reports governments are planning to spend US$9 trillion globally in the next few months on rescuing their economies from the coronavirus crisis, the IEA has calculated.
The stimulus packages created this year will determine the shape of the global economy for the next three years, according to Dr Birol, and within that time emissions must start to fall sharply and permanently, or climate targets will be out of reach.
“The next three years will determine the course of the next 30 years and beyond,” Dr Birol told the Guardian.
“If we do not take action, we will surely see a rebound in emissions.
“If emissions rebound, it is very difficult to see how they will be brought down in future.
“This is why we are urging governments to have sustainable recovery packages.”
Carbon dioxide emissions plunged by a global average of 17 per cent in April, compared with last year, but have since surged again to within about five per cent of last year’s levels.
In a report published today, the IEA, the world’s leading agency for energy analysis, set out the first global blueprint for a green recovery, focusing on reforms to energy generation and consumption.
Wind and solar power should be a top focus, the report advised, alongside energy efficiency improvements to buildings and industries, and the modernisation of electricity grids.
Creating jobs must be the priority for countries where millions have been thrown into unemployment by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns.
The IEA’s analysis shows that targeting green jobs, such as retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient, putting up solar panels and constructing wind farms, wass more effective than pouring money into the high-carbon economy.
Sam Fankhauser, executive director of the Grantham Research Institute on climate change at the London School of Economics, who was not involved in the report, said: “Building efficiency ticks all the recovery boxes, shovel-ready, employment intensive, a high economic multiplier, and is absolutely key for zero carbon as it is a hard-to-treat sector, and has big social benefits, in the form of lower fuel bills.”
He warned that governments must not try to “preserve existing jobs in formaldehyde” through furlough schemes and other efforts to keep people in employment, but provide retraining and other opportunities for people to “move into the jobs of the future”.
Calls for a green recovery globally have now come from experts, economists, health professionals, educators, climate campaigners and politicians.
While some governments are poised to take action, for instance, the EU has pledged to make its European Green Deal the centrepiece of its recovery, the money spent so far has tended to prop up the high-carbon economy.
According to analyst company Bloomberg New Energy Finance, more than half a trillion dollars worldwide, $509bn, is to be poured into high-carbon industries, with no conditions to ensure they reduce their carbon output.
In the first tranches of spending, governments “had an excuse” for failing to funnel money to carbon-cutting industries, said Dr Birol, because they were reacting to a sudden and unexpected crisis.
“The first recovery plans were more aimed at creating firewalls round the economy,” he explained.
However, governments were still targeting high-carbon investment, Dr Birol warned.
He pointed to IEA research showing that by the end of May the amount invested in coal-fired power plants in Asia had accelerated compared with last year.
“There are already signs of a rebound in emissions,” he said.
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YET OUR MASS MURDERING COAL CORRUPT GOVERNMENTS ARE INCREASING COAL MINING. TIME THEY WERE JAILED FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.