The world needs to spend $45,000bn on green technologies in the next 40 years, or 1.1 per cent of annual global economic output, to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Friday.
The investment - much of it needed to accelerate development of new technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells and carbon storage - is roughly equivalent to the gross domestic product of Italy, though the IEA said it represented "a re-direction of economic activity and employment, and not necessarily a reduction of GDP".
Presenting a 643-page report on the agency's findings the other day in Tokyo, Nobuo Tanaka, IEA executive director, said reaching the emissions goal would require a "technology revolution" that would "completely transform the way we produce and use energy".
He added: "If we really go to the 50 per cent reduction, costs are going to be very steep."
Sixty per cent of the investment would need to be made in developing countries, the agency said. Disagreements over who should pay for such investments have been a major stumbling block to convincing China, India and other fast-growing but poor countries to sign on to emissions-cutting schemes.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an advisory body to world leaders, concluded last year that global carbon dioxide emissions would need to fall by 50-85 per cent by 2050 to prevent average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees centigrade.
Among the Group of Eight (G8), Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Canada - but not the US or Russia - have endorsed the goal of cutting emissions by half.
The IEA report, commissioned by G8 leaders at the Gleneagles summit in 2005, said reducing carbon emissions by half would require commercialising technologies now deemed too experimental or expensive given the present economic costs of polluting.
European emissions credits, for example, currently trade at about $30 a tonne, but under the IEA's scenario could rise to between $200 and $500, depending on the rate of technological advance.
The agency said meeting the reduction target would require building 32 new nuclear plants and 17,500 wind turbines a year, and outfitting 35 coal-fired power stations annually with carbon capture and storage equipment. It added: "Nearly 1.0bn electric and fuel cell vehicles need to be on the roads by 2050." (Under syndication arrangement with FE)
IEA highlights need for 'technology revolution'
Jonathan Soble | Published: June 07, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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