IEA: Covid recovery to push emissions to an all-time high by 2023

Carbon emissions are set to hit an all-time high by 2023 as just two percent of pandemic recovery finance is being spent on clean energy, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.

Countries have allocated more than $16 trillion in fiscal support throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, mostly in the form of emergency financial help for workers and businesses. The IEA’S Sustainable Recovery Tracker found that just $380 billion of this had been provided for clean energy projects.

If all spending plans were to be realised, the intergovernmental body said, global carbon emissions would hit record levels in 2023 and continue to rise in the following years.

Overall carbon pollution would be 3.5 billion tonnes higher than a scenario in which economies are compliant with the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature goal of the Paris climate deal, it said.

“Since the Covid-19 crisis erupted, many governments may have talked about the importance of building back better for a cleaner future, but many

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of them are yet to put their money where their mouth is,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol.

The energy watchdog said the figure represented around a third of what it envisioned was needed in order to put the world on course to reach net zero emissions by mid-century.

“The sums of money, both public and private, being mobilised worldwide by recovery plans fall well short of what is needed to reach international climate goals,” Birol wrote.

“(Countries) must then go even further by leading clean energy investment and deployment to much greater heights beyond the recovery period in order to shift the world on to a pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050, which is narrow but still achievable – if we act now,” he added.

The United Nations says that to keep the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature goal in play, emissions must on average fall more than 7% annually through to 2030.

The IEA issued its starkest findings yet on climate in a May report which said the world should not invest in new fossil fuel projects if it hoped to reach net zero by 2050.