#betd21 Francesco La Camera & Dr Fatih Birol - Virtual Green Sofa Talk
And welcome back, everybody, to the Weltsaal. The regulars amongst you, ladies and gentlemen, will probably remember the Green Sofa that has become an icon of the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue. It stands not only for the intensive exchange here at the BETD, but also for our focus on networking with other summits and events worldwide to foster global dialogue on the energy transition. So, between our conferences, the Green Sofa used to travel around the globe.
It has toured six continents, welcomed thousands of people and prestigious guests. Alas, those travels were suspended last year due to the pandemic. Until we can resume them, we have a virtual version of the Green Sofa. And in this session, it provides a platform
for dialogue that has become a tradition here at the BETD. Bringing together the International Energy Agency and the International Renewable Energy Agency. Both of them, of course, uniquely steering the global energy systems. I'm going welcome our speakers in just a moment.
But before we do that, we have an audience question for you. And it concerns the priorities that you believe the IEA and IRENA should have. We're asking you what work areas should the IEA and IRENA prioritize? And please, if you are a registered user, use our Slido window to tell us what you think the main priorities should be. And as you see, this is a word cloud. We're starting to get some words and come back to that in a moment after I introduce our speakers and take a look at our word cloud. So, I would like to begin by introducing Dr. Fatih Birol. He is Executive Director of the International Energy Agency. And joins us
remotely. And I'm also very pleased to welcome Francesco La Camera, Director General of the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA. And now, before we get a first input and presentation, let me just quickly go back to the Mentimeter word cloud. Well, developed quickly I must say. We have, of course, renewables at its center which is appropriate given our topic here. We have just transition high up there in terms of priorities. Long term planning.
Hydrogen also emphasized here in our word cloud. And energy transition, of course, as well. And then a lot of other phrases being entered here. Legislative framework, access to energy services. Community, energy, citizen energy. Cooperation, infrastructure and more. So, very good. Thank you very much. And we will now begin with a presentation by Francesco La Camera who brings us the latest numbers on a net zero scenario. Showing that the 1.5 degree goal is still technically and economically feasible. Here is Mr. La Camera. The floor is yours.
Thank you, Melinda. At these levels, it is very great to be with you at the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue. I realize it's a privilege to be part of the establishment of it and to be in the session again with my good friend, Fatih Birol. This is an important course, and we are
looking forward to the discussion over the next few days. The BETD team captured the sense of this moment in time. Science is clear. According to the special report, we need to get to zero in 2050. Gas emission must be reduced compared to 2010. We are entering the decade to define whether we have a fighting chance to keep temperature rise to 1 degrees. This is becoming clear to many. Despite the crisis the and the economic difficulties, companies continue to make ambitious commitment to action and strategy. And we are looking at the outlook review. We launch it today. And the system must change to stop the 1.5 degree trajectory. This is not easy,
but fundamentally, the energy transition can be a great vehicle not only for decarbonization, but also for a new economy that is inclusive, prosperous and resilient. As you can see from the slide, the window of opportunity is narrow. At IRENA, 1.5 Celsius pathway to work to be deployed at call by 2030 and making the shift towards a net zero energy system by 2050. We see six key avenues for emission reduction in the electrification and others by 2050. Electricity becomes the main energy carrier. Please, next slide. The most
important shift is the increasing use of low cost energy carriers. The use and electricity generation must expand threefold. Providing 90% of the supply that we sent today. It can be all renewable if we support it with ambitious energy efficiency packages. And we need to consider the distribution in industry and transport. IRENA looks at custom batteries to be hydrogen by 2030 or before. This is a hard task, but it's the new energy reality.
Markets are starting to shift to renewable energy assets. Please, next slide. For example, the share of the fossil fuels in the S&P index dropped significantly from 13% a year ago to below 2% today. In 2020, standard and Poor energy index had them you have by 38%. Compared to the energy index which was down by 37%. This trend will continue. But the one point on the agenda requires
a different speed and scale. So, we go to the next slide. I'm talking about investment. The plan is placed in 98 trillion to ramp up investment by 2050. Our outlook shows that an additional 33 US dollar trillion is required to align with the 1.5 degrees. Including a short term stimulus and recovery funds can leverage that investment by a factor of 3 or 4. We must get used it to guide investment decision towards energy transition priorities. And it's also clear in what must not be done. As the Secretary General expressed a few days ago, we cannot continue
to invest in polluting technologies such as coal, especially in the private sector, if you want a fighting chance. All of those lines should be abandoned for a more sustainable solution. This means that 24 US trillion dollars of investment must be redirected away from fossil fuel to energy technologies. The system is not a full replacement. It is a new energy system based on decentralized technology that take advantage of the digital solution, and participation of many factors. This leads me to the final but critical
point. The energy transition cannot be limited to energy choices. Go to the next slide. Thank you. To support the integration of renewable energy must be hands on to ensure that industrial and other economic capabilities are relying on the development and climate objective. Other market measures can help create a real trend and be sure people find jobs. Our last view of this showed there were 11 million people working in the energy sector today in renewables. And we need to create 3 new jobs than fossil fuels for each new dollar of spending. And there needs to be an effort to retrain and develop a new career. Combined with policies,
making sure that people in communities can try and be more inclusive and more resilient. In a few weeks, we will release the information we have presented today along with policy recommendations and analysis of financing services. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we need to ensure that we need to be committed and ambitious to make a rapid shift for the 1.5 degree course. As I mentioned at the outset, the task is daunting. But we must try.
2021 will be an important year. In 2021, we will take more important action. And we have the technology in September and the COP26 in November. And we will continue the energy transition track. And working with energy and cooperating with the COP26 for the full success of the conference. And this collective action is what we need. Many of you are part of the IRENA first assembly which took place 10 years ago. In 2010, the Agency had just 65 members. This number grew to 164 members and 20 country associations. And this force
moved renewables from niche to the center of the energy discourse. We have come a long way. And it is the time to take the progress to the next level. Our shared future depends on it. Thank you very much. Back to you, Melinda. Thank you very much, Director General. Also, for the emphasis towards the ends of your remarks on jobs inclusion. We can see in the word cloud, climate justice on the minds of many of those
listening to us today. And I have a question for you, but first to Dr. Birol to hear from the I EA has been focusing on. And in fact, you have done quite a lot of work over this past year on the topic of building back better after the pandemic. Let's hear what you have learned in
terms of emissions and how we can accelerate clean energy transitions to reach net zero. So, many thanks to the invitation to the International Energy Agency to share our views about the energy transitions and climate change. Yes, we made a lot of work on the build back better. But we also said, build back better all together. It is all together this is important in terms of having everybody on board. So, I would like to use a few reminders first. Where we are today in terms of emissions. Because one of the things you said, you underlined, madam moderator.
We said if the governments will not put the clean energies in the economic recovery packages, emissions will be there in the beginning of 2021 where they were before the COVID crisis. This was our radar nightmare scenario. Because emissions is a result of the economic downturn. Declined in the year 2020 about 6%. But we said be careful! Be careful. Emissions will rebound if the governments do not change their policies. They thought that the COVID crisis, the human beings had better hearts, better understanding of the energy and issues and they will not again use those emitting cars, and others. We said, no. There is a need for government policies that need to change human behavior. But this will not be decisive. And unfortunately unfortunately we were
right. We were right once again because what we have seen is of December 2020, global emissions are higher than the year before. Emissions, they declined over the last year, but with the economies that are recovering, they are back again higher than before the crisis. Why this is happening is very simple. Because many major economies around the world, the economies are recovering. And the recovery of the economies we are seeing their emissions are recovering as well. So, in 2021, this year, we expect a strong rebound of the global emissions unless rapid policies are introduced by governments. So, therefore, this is a reminder in my view. In the absence of
decisive government policies, emissions will not go down. This high lights the importance of government policies. And in my view, the world might miss a historic opportunity to make the 2019 emissions as a peak because we may see the emissions again this year and the years after unless major policies are not put in place. So, the IEA is doing everything we can in our headquarters in Paris and with all of our colleagues around the world to make sure that this year we are moving strongly in terms of clean energy transitions. And I wanted to highlight four that we are doing. First of all, at the end of this month, the UK and the IEA are hosting a Net Zero Summit. The 31st of March. We will be chairing this, and we have all the key countries.
Especially four major economies or emitters. Mr. Kerry from the United States. The Chinese top climate change envoy. Executive Vice President of the EU. And Mr. Singh, the Indian Minister. But in addition to that, we have more than 40 Ministers in civil society. And we will not see our faces individual, but we will see what kind of information we can put in place to have the clean energy technology cooperation. The second contribution we have is on the critical minerals. Hopefully very rapid deployment of clean energy technologies imply a significant increase in the demand of some of the critical minerals such as nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper. And many, many others. And with this, it raises questions
as some of those critical minerals are focused in a few countries in terms of supply. Whether or not or not it will have any new energy security concerns. Or are they in the concerns regarding how they are produced in terms of environmental and social footprint? And we are going to look. What does it mean? The increasing
number of electronic cars, solar panels and other creative technologies on the supply side in terms of critical minerals. Whether or not this will put any pressure on the markets, on the energy world in terms of the prices, in terms of availability, in terms of energy security and others. The third area which I believe is a very critical area, cleaner energy transitions. The investments to foster them coming from European, North America, is good. But this is far, far big from enough. Because when we look at the IEA's energy outlook, a book that's been around since almost 30 years, we all know that the more than 90% of the emissions are coming from emerging countries. The growth is coming from emerging countries.
So, but if you look at the finance in clean energy, in those countries, there's a big gap between what is happening in Europe, for example, and what is happening in emerging countries. How do we how do we accelerate the finance in clean energy in emerging countries? It's a major work we are working together with the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. We are going release in June. In my view in my view if you cannot solve this problem, it is one of the fault lines of our fight against climate change. Finally,
we are working on our roadmap world's roadmap on Neat Zero by 2050. And I would like to give you some information on that and I'll finish my words. So, we have started this last September 2020, with this work. We have a huge modelling teams in the IEA for different issues, for outlook and technology perspective for renewables, all of them. I brought them together in September. We started to model a Net Zero by 2050 energy world.
And January 11th, we have announced this with a huge press conference to the world our plans for the IEA this year including our world's roadmap to Net Zero by 2050. I have been working with several institutions, modelling institutions around the world with IPCC, with UK, US, Japan, China, European Commission. Several of them how to model best that and to learn from their experiences if the critics get their reviews in order to make a rigorous, solid modelling framework. And recently
this month we organized a webinar about 200 models around the world. We were really happy. Colleagues from IPCC, China, India, everywhere. I was very happy to have colleagues from Nigeria in that meeting and got wonderful news and their suggestion its which we are working on. Now, we also are going to, as I said, make the Summit on 31st of March with the UK COP presidency and we will get news from the world energy and climate leaders about the Net Zero 2050.
We are going to our report the first draft we go to peer review around the world to get their feedback. What thing is right, what thing is wrong. How we can improve our work. And we are hoping not hoping we will on 18th of May, we will release our report to international press in Paris. And I should also tell you that this report is officially by the co presidency in order to provide the basis for the work leaders in COP in Glasgow in November.
And as I said, this report will build a bridge it will build a bridge between Paris and Glasgow. And we are very happy to support the co presidency, the UK presidency in that respect. Finally, madam, what are we trying to do in this report? Just three things. First of all, we want to assess the scale of the challenge here. We are going to look
every single sub sector existing in the world, sub sector by sub sector. What is required to bring the emissions to net zero? And we are going to assess the existing targets announced vis a vis the current sub sectors they are in. Then we are going map out the pathway. Our modelling context when we build with the ETP and other coming together for this very important assignment, we have more than 800 different technologies we are assessing one by one. And we are looking what kind of key milestones the world needs in order to reach those targets. For example, when do we in the world need to stop the internal combustion engine cars? Last one. Or until then, to build a steel plant
run by fossil fuels. So, key milestones for the governments in order to give them a more concrete picture of the task they have in front of them. And these will be actionable. Not in the air, but actionable policy advice for the governments on a sector by sector basis. And we will also discuss the implications. For example, oil sector. Today we consume 100 million barrels of oil. It will go down sharply. But what are the implications for the industry?
What are the implications for the manufacturers and those workers? We are going to discuss those things. But also, the emerging opportunities coming from this plan will be a part of it. We also are going to discuss the wider implications. We are working with the International Monetary Fund and other institutions. And we have built a global commission on the people -centered economic people -centered creative transitions under the chairmanship of the prime minister of Denmark. I think some 25 leaders around the world. We will look at the implications on the societies. Because we think the energy transitions should be as a result of the support coming from the people. Not despite the people. People shouldn't think
that the clean energy transitions will take their jobs from them. And energy process goes higher, or energy security will be in question. We have to assure them that we put the people at the center of the clean energy transitions. So, as such, we are ready for this year's plans and this year's and beyond. And it is great to make a contribution to the BETD
meeting once again to get with my dear colleague, Francesco La Camera. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Birol. Also, for your emphasis on the need to leverage financing for the green transitioning in developing green emerging economies, also heard from Patricia Espinosa. And a subject we will be picking up on later in the dialogue. Gentlemen,
we have exactly one minute left on the clock. I have one super short follow up with the request literally for a two sentence answer. First of all, to Director General La Camera, if I may. You have emphasized time is running out. We have heard from lots of speakers. You have a wide membership. How do you want to translate your findings into practice on the ground? Two sentences? First sentence is trying to collaborate closely with our member states and put them in contact with the public company and the framework. Open it for all the teams to have energy.
And also work on what we launched last year. And in collaboration with the funds. We have more than 300 partners and more institutions and companies that developed with The World Bank, we have many projects. We can make the finance arrive as needed. Thanks. Thank you very much, Director General. And over to Dr. Fatih Birol. Same request. Looking toward the COP26, looking at political momentum in 2021, are you optimistic or pessimistic? I am definitely optimistic. There are three reasons for that. Many countries are putting strong pledges to have carbon neutrality in 2050 or later, and the political momentum is very strong and with the United States coming soon joining this group will make the political momentum even stronger. The second reason I am optimistic because the several clean energy technologies are getting cheaper, and also affordable in many, many parts of the world. We are seeing this is a great, great opportunity.
People will go for these options, solar or wind or efficiency solutions. Not only to save the world, but simply because they are cheaper. The second reason. And third reason, I see the youth is behind this very strong momentum. And I look at the last 50 years, the political
history of the world, if the world's youth comes together, and they are coming together, they can be a strong engine of the change, and because of these three reasons, I believe I am an optimistic man and the COP26 will result in good and unmistakable direction for the investors around the world. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Birol. Indeed, we heard some very powerful youth voices earlier today. I'm very grateful for you being with us for our traditional Green Sofa Dialogue this time around in virtual form. All the best, gentlemen.
2021-03-26 07:05
