The Guardian-Staggering green growth gives hope for 15C says global energy head
September 26, 2023 4 min 816 words
这篇报道描绘了世界能源监管机构负责人Fatih Birol的看法，他对可再生能源和绿色投资在过去两年内的“惊人”增长感到乐观，认为这有望帮助全球保持1.5摄氏度的气温上限。作为世界最杰出的能源经济学家之一，Birol表示，虽然还有很多工作要做，但太阳能和电动汽车的迅速普及令人鼓舞。然而，他也警告说，能源部门的温室气体排放仍然高企，今年世界各地出现的极端天气表明气候已经以“令人恐惧的速度”发生变化。 国际能源机构在一份名为“零排放路线图”的报告中呼吁发达国家，包括英国，将2050年的零排放目标提前数年。报告发现“几乎所有国家都必须提前实现零排放目标”，对于大多数发达国家来说，零排放目标是在2050年，尽管一些国家有更近的目标，如德国的2045年，奥地利和冰岛的2040年，而许多发展中国家的目标要晚得多，中国的目标是2060年，印度的目标是2070年。 对于即将于今年11月和12月在迪拜举行的联合国气候峰会（Cop28），Birol表示这是一个关键机会，让各国提出更严格的减排计划。他希望看到Cop28同意在2030年前将可再生能源增加三倍，并在同一日期前将能源部门的甲烷排放削减75%。后者可以以很低的成本实现，因为高天然气价格意味着修补石油和天然气井的泄漏可能是有利可图的。但Birol警告说，地缘政治局势复杂，许多国家在乌克兰战争问题上存在分歧，美中关系依然紧张，这将使峰会变得困难。 总的来说，这篇报道传递了一个积极的信息，即全球在应对气候危机方面已经取得了一些进展，但仍需要更多努力。在气候变化的紧迫压力下，各国必须加大可再生能源的投资，提高能源效率，减少化石燃料的使用，并加快实现零排放目标的步伐。地球面临的气候危机是全球性的，需要国际社会的协作，特别是富裕国家有责任在此方面发挥引领作用。然而，实现这一目标还需要国际社会共同努力，克服地缘政治挑战，确保我们能够实现气候目标，减轻气候变化带来的影响。
The prospects of the world staying within the 1.5C limit on global heating have brightened owing to the “staggering” growth of renewable energy and green investment in the past two years, the chief of the world’s energy watchdog has said.
Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, and the world’s foremost energy economist, said much more needed to be done but that the rapid uptake of solar power and electric vehicles were encouraging.
“Despite the scale of the challenges, I feel more optimistic than I felt two years ago,” he said in an interview. “Solar photovoltaic installations and electric vehicle sales are perfectly in line with what we said they should be, to be on track to reach net zero by 2050, and thus stay within 1.5C. Clean energy investments in the last two years have seen a staggering 40% increase.”
But Birol also noted that greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector were “still stubbornly high”, and that the extreme weather seen around the world this year had shown the climate was already changing “at frightening speed”.
The IEA, in a report entitled Net Zero Roadmap, published on Tuesday morning, also called on developed countries with 2050 net zero targets, including the UK, to bring them forward by several years.
The report found “almost all countries must move forward their targeted net zero dates”, which for most developed countries are 2050 – though some have closer dates, such as Germany with 2045 and Austria and Iceland with 2040 – and for many developing countries are much later, at 2060 in the case of China, and 2070 in India’s case.
Cop28, the UN climate summit to be held in Dubai this November and December, offered a key opportunity for countries to set out tougher emissions-cutting plans, Birol said.
He wants to see Cop28 agree a tripling of renewable energy by 2030, and a 75% cut in methane from the energy sector by the same date. The latter could be achieved at little cost, because high gas prices mean that plugging leaks from oil and gas wells can be profitable.
But Birol warned that the geopolitical situation, with many nations at loggerheads over the war in Ukraine, and still frosty relations between the US and China, would make for a difficult summit.
He said: “The most important challenge [to limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels] is the lack of international cooperation. Cop28 is a critical juncture, and should send a strong signal to energy markets that governments are taking the climate seriously. They should move to reduce the consumption of unabated fossil fuels.”
He also called for Cop28 to agree a doubling of energy efficiency. “To reduce fossil fuel emissions, we need to reduce demand for fossil fuels. This is a golden condition, if we are to reach our climate goals,” he said.
Birol stopped short of endorsing the call that some countries have made for a full phase-out of fossil fuels by 2050 to be agreed at Cop28, but he said all countries must work on reducing their fossil fuel use.
Rishi Sunak, the UK’s prime minister, last week reaffirmed his commitment to net zero by 2050, but reversed and delayed some key policies that would help to attain the goal. Sunak is also planning a large new round of North Sea oil and gas licences, despite clear advice from the IEA that no new upstream oil or gas projects should be built on the road to net zero.
Birol also refused to single out any countries, but made it clear that the richest countries should be moving much faster on renewable energy, energy efficiency, reducing fossil fuel use and bringing forward their net zero targets.
Birol said: “Advanced economies have special responsibilities in fighting climate change. What I would expect advanced economies to do is to increase their ambition further, rather than reducing it. Clean energy would create lots of new jobs and employment, and build a modern industry [needed] to have a competitive position with other countries. Industry knows that the next chapter of global industry is based on clean energy technologies.”
Tessa Khan, executive director at Uplift, a campaigning organisation, said: “This [IEA report] is yet more confirmation from the world’s energy experts that we can’t have new oil and gas projects if we’re going to stay within a safe climate, and that massively scaling up renewables is key to achieving that.
“Yet the UK is part of a tiny club of wealthy countries that while professing to lead on climate is massively expanding oil and gas production. Just five nations – the US, Canada, Australia, Norway and the UK – are responsible for over half of all planned oil and gas field developments from now to 2050.”