Here are some of the main highlights:
- Clean technologies in the power sector and across a range of end-uses have become the first choice for consumers around the world, initially due to policy support but over time because they are simply the most cost-effective. In most regions, solar PV or wind already represents the cheapest available source of new electricity generation.
- Achieving net zero emissions scenario (NZE) requires an unparalleled increase in clean energy investment. In the NZE, annual investment in clean energy rises to USD 4 trillion by 2030, more than tripling from current levels. Mobilising such a large investment will be challenging, but the investment required to secure clean energy transitions offers an unprecedented level of market opportunities to equipment manufacturers, service providers, developers and engineering, procurement and construction companies along the entire clean energy supply chain.
- In the NZE, the combined size of the market for wind turbines, solar panels, lithium-ion batteries, electrolysers and fuel cells represents a cumulative market opportunity to 2050 worth USD 27 trillion.
- Actions in four key areas over the next decade are essential to keep the door to a 1.5 °C stabilisation open: a massive push for clean electrification; a renewed focus on realising the full potential of energy efficiency; concerted efforts to prevent leaks from fossil fuel operations; and a boost to clean energy innovation.
- Price volatility is an ever-present feature of commodity markets, but well-managed transitions offer ways to dampen the impacts on household energy bills. Compared with the situation in STEPS, the effect of a large price shock in 2030 in the NZE is reduced by efficiency gains and lower direct consumption of oil and gas.
- An international catalyst will be essential to accelerate clean energy deployment and to allow developing economies – where per capita emissions are often very low – to chart a new lower emissions path for development; as things stand, emissions from emerging market and developing economies (excluding China) increase more than 5 Gt to 2050 in the STEPS, with the largest growth from industry and transport.
- Transitions are accompanied by marked shifts in energy sector employment, but clean energy jobs expand faster than other sectors fall. The downside risks for jobs are concentrated in the coal sector, where retirements of coal‐fired capacity approach 100 gigawatts (GW) per year over the coming decade in the NZE, almost double the figure in the Announced Pledges Scenario (APS). Phasing out coal requires an accelerated scale up of new low emissions generation and infrastructure, as well as a sustained commitment by governments and the international community to manage the impacts on communities, assets, land and the local environment.
>> Read the full report at www.iea.org
