The International Energy Agency said the world will need to invest almost $4.5 trillion per year to successfully transition to net zero from 2030. However, it also noted that politicians are backsliding on climate pledges, despite record temperatures.
“Governments need to separate climate from geopolitics, given the scale of the challenge at hand,” IEA director Faith Birol said.
He expressed hope that this year’s record growth in clean energy technology means it is still possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
In its Net Zero annual report, the IEA also called for a 75% reduction in methane emissions from the energy sector by 2030, which would cost approximately $75 billion, just 2% of the net revenue received by the oil and gas industry in 2022.
The IEA pathway to net zero will also require an equitable transition, taking into account national circumstances and requiring advanced economies to reach net zero sooner than developing economies, the report said.
Global averages have reached around 1.1C higher compared with the pre-industrial average, it noted.
That compares with the goal set by the 2015 U.N. Paris Agreement to keep global temperature rises well below 2C, while pursuing efforts to limit them to 1.5C to prevent the most severe consequences, such as drought, floods and increased wildfires.
