A new report issued on Tuesday by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), in collaboration with the COP30 Brazilian Presidency and the Global Renewables Alliance (GRA), claims that the world is moving too slowly on renewable energy and efficiency to meet its near-term climate goals.
Launched at a high-level event in Brasília ahead of COP30, the report titled Delivering on the UAE Consensus: Tracking progress toward tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 finds that, despite record deployment in 2024, current trajectories fall far short of what is needed to meet the COP28-mandated UAE Consensus targets.
While global renewable capacity additions hit 582 GW in 2024, the UAE Consensus goal of 11.2 TW of renewable capacity by 2030 now implies that annual additions must reach 1,122 GW per year from 2025 onward, which would be a sustained growth rate of 16.6% annually.
The report also flags significant underperformance in efficiency, with the improvement in global energy intensity in 2024 being around 1%, which is well short of the roughly 4% annual gains needed to meet the UAE Consensus.
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A central theme of the report is that structural and systemic bottlenecks are slowing the clean energy transition. Among the obstacles cited are underinvestment, grid infrastructure delays, supply chain fragility, and regulatory hurdles.
To close these gaps, the authors urge that countries embed even more ambitious and binding renewable and efficiency targets in the lead-up to COP30.
The report projects that G20 countries will account for over 80% of global renewable capacity by 2030, with the G7 making up roughly 20% of global capacity. It also emphasises the role of developed economies in providing sufficient climate finance, meeting a $300 billion annual floor under the new collective quantified goal and scaling toward the $1.3 trillion aspiration set at COP29.
While global renewable energy growth remains impressive, this latest report highlights the gap between reality and expectations, outlining the scale of the task ahead if the COP 2030 climate goals are to be met.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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