IEA: Low-Carbon Spending Must ‘More than Double’ to Meet Climate Goals

Investment in low-carbon energy sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear, must more than double by 2030 if the world is to meet its Paris Agreement climate goals, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

This is one of the many insights to emerge from the agency’s latest World Energy Investment report, which is published today.  Besides the trend in low-carbon spending, the analysis shows that overall energy investment is also not keeping up with consumption trends.  [Carbon Brief also covered the IEA’s reports in 2017 and 2018.]

Here, Carbon Brief has picked out key charts to illustrate these trends, as well as some of the IEA’s findings on everything from electric car sales to the spread of air conditioning units and battery storage.

Missing sustainability targets
Overall, the research found that global investment in all forms of energy supply and demand stabilized in 2018 at around $1.85tn, after three years of decline.  Within that total, investment in low-carbon energy was also stable at around $620bn, as the chart below shows.

Read more at IEA:  Low-Carbon Spending Must ‘More than Double’ to Meet Climate Goals