The world has great renewable energy potential, but not at the pace required by the objective of tripling renewable capacity set at COP28. According to a joint report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the Brazilian presidency of COP30 and the Global Renewables Alliance, 2024 closed with a historic increase of 582 gigawatts (GW) of clean installed power. Even so, to reach the 11.2 terawatts (TW) committed to 2030, the world must add an annual average of 1,122 GW from 2025, which implies accelerating growth to 16.6% sustained during the decade.
We must understand that the gap is not only one of power, but also of efficiency and that is why global energy intensity (the energy necessary to produce one unit of GDP) improved by just 1% in 2024, well below the 4% per year required by the path compatible with the 1.5ºC limit. The report, the second official assessment since the United Arab Emirates Consensus, warns that without a quantitative leap in efficiency the effort in renewables will be insufficient.
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The critical lever is financing. The authors call for increasing the annual investment in renewables to 1.4 trillion dollars between 2025 and 2030, more than double the 624 billion mobilized in 2024. The immediate destination: electrical networks (an estimated 670 billion annually between now and 2030), storage and integration of technologies (solar, wind, batteries and hydrogen) to ensure system stability and absorption of new generation.
Costs less, but harder to maintain
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres explains the urgency: “Renewable energies are being implemented faster and at a lower cost than fossil fuels… But the window to maintain 1.5ºC is rapidly closing.” For Francesco La Camera, general director of IRENA, renewables “represent the greatest economic opportunity of these times”, provided that implementation is accelerated, networks are modernized and supply chains are strengthened. And Ben Backwell, president of the Global Renewables Alliance, calls for grounding ambition in “executable plans” that facilitate permits, networks and storage.
The effort falls, above all, on the large economies. The G20 would concentrate more than 80% of global renewable capacity in 2030, with the G7 increasing its weight to around 20% during this decade. In parallel, the report calls for meeting the new collective quantified climate finance goal (NCQG), with a floor of 300 billion dollars annually and an aspirational goal of 1.3 trillion, agreed at COP29, to channel flows to emerging and developing countries.
The industrial dimension is another piece of the puzzle. To avoid bottlenecks, fair and transparent trade practices in critical technologies and cooperation to keep material and component corridors open are called for. The project portfolio is growing (investment rose 7% in 2024), but “well below” what is necessary to multiply construction in this second half of the decade.
At the gates of COP30, in Belém, the authors call for integrating renewable and efficiency objectives in the NDC 3.0, doubling the ambition and presenting national roadmaps with network and storage calendars. Now, the details of the regulatory reforms that accelerate permits, the breakdown by technology and region of the investment effort and a capacity plan to cover the demand for qualified labor remain to be known (and will be key to credibility).