Want to fight climate change? Triple global renewables target
The developed world needs to set more ambitious targets and triple renewable capacity to 11TW by 2030 to meet climate targets.
The suggested target comes from a research group that looked at 57 countries plus the EU, and found far more renewable capacity in the pipeline than is recognised by less-than-ambitious governments.
The key question is whether governments will capitalise on a potential 'explosion' of wind and solar power.
Australia is one of 22 countries whose development pipelines exceed what they need to install to meet 2030 targets.The problem is in the doing.
Australia has an 82 per cent renewable energy target for 2030, and needs to add at least 5GW of large scale renewables on average every year until 2030 to do that.
But within Australia, there is limited optimism. The Clean Energy Council and even the AEMO lament speed bumps such as a lack of clear policy detail to guide the energy transition.
The slow-down of Australia’s renewables sector this year is highlighted by data that shows no new solar projects registered in the first two months of 2023/24.
The renewables boom globally, however, is already outpacing growth planned by governments generally, which aims for an estimated 7.3 TW in 2030, up from 3.4 TW in 2022.