The world falls short of sufficiently reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goals, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). However, significant strides have been made since 2015: the climate trajectory, though still threatening, has improved, and the growth of renewable energy is outpacing expectations.
When the Paris Agreement was adopted at COP21, economic policies were steering the world towards a 3.5°C temperature increase by 2100 compared to the pre-industrial era, as per the IEA. This level implied a chain of climate catastrophes, including uninhabitable regions due to extreme heat and droughts, polar ice melting, and permafrost thawing.
Eight years later, current country commitments place the world on a trajectory of 2.5°C to 2.9°C warming over the century, according to UN estimates revealed before COP28. The IEA even suggests planned global energy policies align with a +2.4°C trajectory by 2100.
Since 2015, annual greenhouse gas emissions have increased by about 9%, according to the UN. This is less than expected before the Paris Agreement. The rate of increase has notably slowed, to the point that global emissions’ peak could be reached in 2024 or even 2023, according to recent estimates from the Climate Analysis Institute. This aligns with the scenario recommended by the UN’s climate experts, the IPCC, to meet Paris goals.
Before Paris, the IEA projected energy sector-related emissions (over 80% of human-caused CO2) to reach 43 billion tons in 2030. However, the agency has recently revised this figure downward to 35 billion tons.
“Three technologies primarily contribute to emission reductions” between 2015 projections and current estimates, says the IEA: “solar energy, wind, and electric vehicles.” Compared to 2015 forecasts for 2030, “photovoltaic solar energy should contribute to reducing emissions by approximately 3 billion tons, roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of the world’s automotive traffic,” calculates the OECD agency.
Photovoltaic solar and wind energy are being used to replace coal, oil, and gas power plants. They are now estimated to represent around 15% of global electricity production in 2030, about 3 to 7 times more than experts anticipated in 2015.
At that time, the deployment of electric vehicles seemed like a short-term fantasy, with less than 2% of sales predicted for 2030. Now, the IEA estimates that over a third of new cars by that date will have swapped combustion engines for electric ones.
Progress continues: “The adoption of clean energy technologies has seen unprecedented growth in the last two years,” celebrates the IEA, highlighting a 50% increase in global photovoltaic capacities since 2020 and a 240% surge in electric vehicle sales.
The IEA attributes these advances, unimaginable before the Paris Agreement, to the impact of public policies and decreasing costs. In China, “successive 5-year plans gradually raised ambitions for photovoltaic solar energy and led to a global cost decline. ” In Europe, offshore wind energy deployment “kick-started the industry worldwide,” while electric motorcycles or buses experienced “significant growth in India and other emerging economies,” according to the IEA.