IEA sets out pillars for success at COP21
Report offers strategy for delivering a peak in energy emissions by 2020
15 June 2015 London
A peak in global energy-related emissions could be achieved as early as 2020 and at no net economic cost, the International Energy Agency said on Monday in its new World Energy Outlook Special Report on Energy and Climate Change. The Agency showed how to achieve an early peak in emissions as one of four key pillars that it believes are needed to make the upcoming UN climate talks a success, from an energy perspective.
The world is at a critical juncture in its efforts to combat climate change, with momentum building towards the 21st UN Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in December 2015. World greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from energy production and use are double the level of all other sources combined, meaning that action to combat climate change must come first and foremost from the energy sector. The IEA proposes that the following four key pillars are needed to make COP21 a success, from an energy perspective:
- Peak in emissions – set the conditions to achieve an early peak in global energy-related emissions.
- Five-year revision – review national climate targets regularly, to test the scope to raise ambition.
- Lock in the vision – translate the world's climate goal into a collective long-term emissions goal.
- Track the transition – establish a process for tracking achievements inthe energy sector.
- Increasing energy efficiency in the industry, buildings and transport sectors
- Reducing the use of the least-efficient coal-fired power plants and banning their construction
- Increasing investment in renewable energy technologies in the power sector from $270 billion in 2014 to $400 billion in 2030
- Gradual phasing out of fossil-fuel subsidies to end-users by 2030
- Reducing methane emissions in oil and gas production