IRENA director-general Francesco La Camera (left) and Global Renewables Alliance CEO Bruce Douglas. Photo: Supplied
The Global Time For Action campaign was launched by the Global Renewables Alliance on Tuesday at the 14th Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in a call to fast-track the delivery of renewable energy.
Global Renewables Alliance CEO Bruce Douglas said the launch of this campaign followed the commitments of COP28 last year, which was the ambition to scale renewables to triple them globally to more than 11 000 gigawatts.
“We see the opportunity now is to combine long-term planning with urgent short-term actions. So the time to 2030 is short, less than seven years, and we need to act now. So we as the Alliance are launching several initiatives here at the assembly, but also throughout the rest of the year.
“We as the industry stand ready to deliver. We think it’s possible to scale to 11 000 gigawatts. We have consistently broken records worldwide for the last few decades in renewable deployment. Last year alone, it surged by over 30%. However, at that current pace, renewable capacity will fall far short of that tripling ambition. So we’re now calling on governments to take action,” he said.
Douglas warned that if this was not done the world risked moving further away from the 1.5ºC climate pathway and missing the huge opportunities that renewables at scale represented in terms of socio-economic development, energy security, green industrialisation, and affordable access to clean energy, where it mattered most in emerging markets and developing economies.
“So just four of the main actions that we’re calling for on financing on permitting on grids and supply chains. Financing is, in our opinion, the main priority and, especially, mobilising the $10 trillion (R190 trillion) of finance required cumulative by 2030. And especially moved to emerging markets,” he further said.
This week the Global Renewables Alliance was also launching a finance advisory group, which brings together public and private finance institutions, along with IRENA’s expert input to discuss what were the principles and requirements to scale the $10 trillion.
The Global Renewables Alliance website detailed a nine-point plan for accelerating permitting.
Douglas said: “It still takes longer to permit a wind farm than it does to build a wind farm in many jurisdictions around the world. There are also thousands of gigawatts around the world waiting in connections in permitting queues. That’s in addition to the grid connection queues, which is more gigawatts. So there’s a huge potential there at low cost to unblock renewable deployment through permitting. Included in the nine-point plan are things like standardisation, one-stop shops, digitalisation and processes.”
Furthermore, as an industry in the development industry it faced different permitting guidelines in each jurisdiction. So if one was developing in multiple countries, one was facing a challenge in terms of that administrative burden, which could be simplified, he added.
IRENA director-general Francesco La Camera said this call for action was very timely.
He said it was important to have a strong voice for accelerating the transition of energy away from fossil fuels.
La Camera talked about how developing countries to build renewable energy infrastructure needed a plan similar to the the Marshall Plan after World War II to provide economic assistance.
This was the easiest way to create jobs and revenues, he added.
BUSINESS REPORT