Renewable projects could help G20 find 22% of 2030 targets
A new report has identified a number of renewable energy projects, which could deliver 22% of emissions reductions promised by leading countries before 2030. The initiatives could also deliver more than one-trillion wats of electricity capacity.
According to strategy consultancy EY-Parthenon, around 13,000 renewable energy projects in nearly 50 countries are waiting for finance. If these projects were to be carried to fruition, though, they could provide trillion-dollar investment opportunities, massive reductions in pollution, and create millions of jobs around the world.
Serge Colle, EY's global energy advisor, commented that the research showed "huge potential to accelerate private-sector renewables investment" with the right government policies and regulation around the world. While workers in China and the United States would benefit most – about 2 million and 1.8 million jobs being created in each nation respectively – India, Australia, Brazil, Britain and Canada also could generate hundreds of thousands of jobs each from boosting offshore and onshore wind, solar and hydropower capacity. Overall, the report contends that the 13,000 projects featured could create 10 million jobs globally.
Across the 50 countries analysed, EY-Parthenon suggested the projects would require an annual investment of $654 billion over three years. However, the report also suggested this figure is not as large as it seems when spread across those economies. The researchers contended that the median size of the investment pipeline is equivalent to 28% of most economy’s 2020 GDP loss due to Covid-19.
At the same time, EY-Parthenon said the projects could produce 1TW of electricity capacity, and offered $2 trillion in investment opportunities; something which could also boost jobs locally and in supply chains, and help slash climate-heating emissions. Should the identified projects be implemented by 2024, they could double the rate of global renewables deployment and deliver more than one-fifth of the emissions reductions promised this decade by the 47 countries covered in the research.
These nations include the G20, and if they could make 22% of the emissions cuts they have currently promised, EY-Parthenon contends that would have a massive global impact. The world would have found 9% of the emissions cuts needed by 2030 to keep planetary warming to the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious global target – 1.5C above pre-industrial times.
The UK is right in line with these projections – as 22% of its 2030 NDC targets could be achieved via the renewable projects identified by EY-Parthenon. The UK pipeline of projects seeking finance includes 540 mainly solar and wind power proposals, which carry the potential creation of 439,000 new jobs. This could even rise to about 625,000 when power storage, transmission and distribution are added.