According to global community of renewable energy actors REN21’s ‘Renewables 2022 Global Status Report’ (GSR), the global clean energy transition is not happening, making it unlikely that the world will be able to meet critical climate goals this decade.

Despite promises of a worldwide green recovery in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, REN21 says the historic opportunity to transition to greener industrial methods has been lost.

The second half of 2021 saw the start of the “biggest energy crisis in modern history”, states REN21, exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine towards the end of February, and the unprecedented global commodity shock.

REN21 executive director Rana Adib says that, although many more governments committed to net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions in 2021, the reality is that, in response to the energy crisis, most countries have gone back to seeking out new sources of fossil fuels and to burning even more coal, oil and natural gas.

On a yearly basis, the GSR takes stock of renewable energy deployment worldwide, with this year’s report being the seventeenth edition. REN21 says its report provides proof of what experts have been warning about – the overall share of renewables in the world’s final energy consumption having stagnated. This is evidenced by an overall share in renewables rising only minimally, from 8.7% in 2009 to 11.7% in 2019.

In the electricity sector, record additions of 314.5 GW (up 17% from 2020) in renewable power capacity and generation of 7.793 TWh, were unable to meet the overall increase in electricity consumption of 6%.

In heating and cooling, the renewable share in final energy consumption increased from 8.9% in 2009, to 11.2% in 2019.

In the transport sector – where the renewable share went from 2.4% in 2009 to 3.7% in 2019 – the lack of progress is particularly worrying, states REN21, as the sector accounts for nearly a third of global energy consumption.

EMPTY PROMISES?

Despite many new commitments to net zero, political momentum has not translated into action, says REN21.

The organisation points out that in the lead-up to the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in November 2021, a record 135 countries pledged to achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050.

However, REN21 says that only 84 of these countries had economy-wide targets for renewable energy, and only 36 had targets for 100% renewables.

Nonetheless, REN21 says that for the first time in the history of UN climate summits, the COP26 declaration mentioned the need to reduce coal use, but it failed to call for targeted reductions in either coal or fossil fuels.

The GSR makes clear that meeting countries’ net-zero pledges will require significant efforts.

Despite important green recovery measures in many countries, the strong economic rebound in 2021 – with global real gross domestic product (GDP) growing by 5.9% – contributed to a 4% rise in final energy consumption, offsetting the growth of renewables. In China alone, final energy consumption rose 36% between 2009 and 2019.

Most of the increase in global energy use in 2021 was met by fossil fuels, resulting in the largest surge in carbon dioxide emissions in history, up more than two-billion tonnes worldwide.

Further, the GSR reveals that 2021 marked the end of the era of cheap fossil fuels, with the largest spike in energy prices since the 1973 oil crisis. By the end of the year, gas prices reached around ten times the 2020 levels in Europe and Asia and tripled in the US, leading to a spike in wholesale electricity prices in major markets by the end of 2021.

She says the “old energy regime is collapsing before our eyes”, and with it, the global economy. “Yet crisis response and climate goals must not be in conflict. Renewables are the most affordable and best solution to tackle energy price fluctuations.”

Adib adds that countries must boost the share of renewables and make them a priority of economic and industrial policy.

Russian threats to halt critical exports of natural gas and oil, particularly to Europe, have underscored the urgency of transitioning to renewables, says REN21.

To address the crisis, the European Union and national and local governments have updated clean energy targets and pushed numerous measures to accelerate the energy transition, yet REN21 says they also continue to resort to “old recipes”.

In this regard, although some countries, such as the UK, have announced new taxes on energy majors, most countries have simultaneously enacted new subsidies on fossil fuels. The coal, oil and natural gas industries have been the main beneficiary of the energy crisis and governments’ responses, gaining both profits and influence.

The GSR reveals that, despite renewed commitments to climate action, governments still opted to provide subsidies for fossil fuel production and use as their first choice to mitigate the effects of the energy crisis.

Between 2018 and 2020, governments spent $18-trillion – 7% of global GDP in 2020 – on fossil fuel subsidies, in some cases while reducing support to renewables (as in India).

This trend, REN21 says, reveals a worrying gap between ambition and action. It also ignores the many opportunities and benefits from transitioning to a renewable-based economy and society, including the ability to achieve more diversified and inclusive energy governance through localised energy generation and value chains.

REN21 says countries with higher shares of renewables in their total energy consumption enjoy greater energy independence and security.

“Instead of putting renewables on the back burner and relying on fossil fuel subsidies to reduce people’s energy bills, governments should directly finance the installation of renewable energy technologies in vulnerable households,” Adib says.