Already, the pope, the secretary-general of the United Nations report that evaluates global 2021 emissions and energy demand, energy consumption is set to increase this year, with a widespread doubling down on fossil fuels.
A green global recovery, of course, supports the aim of the Paris Agreement to keep global climate well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Last summer, the World Resources Institute published a report, “5 Pillars for a Green and Resilient Recovery from COVID-19.” One of these pillars — helpful to remember as governments create regulations and pass legislation to stimulate their economies — is that global crises are often interrelated.
When comparing two hypothetical recovery plans — one incorporating a green recovery and the other focusing on a COVID recovery or “return to normal,” Cambridge Econometrics and the We Mean Business coalition found a distinct difference in results.
It may come as no surprise that renewables have grown during the pandemic — a trend that IEA reporting confirms. The IEA expects renewables to account for more than half of the increase in global electricity supply in 2021.
Growth in coal doesn’t exactly align with a clean or long-term COVID recovery plan.
Although carbon emissions decreased by over 6 percent in 2020, any temporary progress can be easily reversed.
Thus far, government investment in fossil fuels for COVID-19 recovery has outweighed contributions toward renewable energy by four percentage points, according to the NGO-backed energypolicytracker.org.
Besides simply starting to “walk the talk,” its advice includes broadening measures to touch sectors such as agriculture, waste management and forestry, as well as investing in skills, innovation and job creation to ensure the transition to a more resilient economy is also just and equitable.
A well-executed COVID recovery could prove to be an opportunity for nations to do an about-face toward a cleaner economy.