For the first time since it started tracking progress, none of 19 key areas for tackling climate change are on track to meet their contribution towards a sub-2C world, says the IEA's Energy Technology Perspectives 2015, published on 4 May. It says five technologies or sectors are off track, and the outlook for the remaining 14 is failing to improve fast enough.
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What needs to change
The list of improvements recommended by the IEA is lengthy and detailed. Just a few examples show the scale and range of effort needed to turn things around. The IEA says the amount of carbon dioxide being captured and stored each year through CCS needs to increase ten-fold.
Electricity prices must reflect the true cost of generation, with carbon pricing to make low-carbon sources competitive with coal. Uncertainty over renewables policy, particularly in the EU, is the main barrier to deployment. Financing costs are increased by policy uncertainty, the IEA says, and this can directly undermine renewables' competitiveness.
The report stops short of demanding an early end to unabated coal, but says all new coal plants should be designed to allow for CCS in future, with a plateau and then reduction in coal emissions. Industrial energy use must fall by 1% every year to 2025 compared to current trends.
Transport emissions, increasing 2% per year since 2000, need to start falling. The current average 50% annual growth in electric vehicles needs to reach 80% per year. Between 1.5 and 2% of existing buildings need to have deep energy retrofits every year, to reduce energy consumption.
Read more at 19 Reasons Why the World Is Missing the 2C Climate Change Limit
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