World falling behind on renewable targets, must ramp up capacity growth: IRENA

ISTANBUL

The world needs to ramp up annual renewable energy capacity growth to 16.4%, up from last year's 14% increase rate, through 2030 to achieve global goal of tripling renewables set at COP28, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) on Thursday.

In the Renewable Energy Statistics 2024 report, IRENA says that renewables is becoming the fastest growing source of power with unprecedented growth observed last year.

"The unprecedented 14% increase of renewables capacity during 2023 established a 10% compound annual growth rate (2017-2023)," according to the report.

Due to the continual decline in non-renewable energy additions, renewable energy is on track to overtake fossil fuels in global installed power capacity, the report revealed.

The agency says that if the growth seen in the last year continues, the world will miss "the target by 13.5%" and global renewables capacity will fall short of reaching 11.2 terawatts (TW) by 2030.

"If the world keeps the historic annual growth rate of 10%, it will only accumulate 7.5 TW of renewables capacity by 2030, missing the target by almost one-third," IRENA says.

IRENA Director-General, Francesco La Camera said that renewable are surging ahead of fossil fuels but "must grow at higher speed and scale."

Without improvement, "we will only face failure in reaching the tripling renewables target agreed in the UAE Consensus at COP28, consequently risking the goals of the Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," La Camera said.

COP28 President Dr Sultan Al Jaber said that the report is "a wake-up call for the entire world," and countries need to increase the pace and scale of development.

"That means increasing collaboration between governments, the private sector, multilateral organizations, and civil society," Al Jaber said.