DUBAI - At the COP28 United Nations climate talks in Dubai, one of the key outcomes is likely to be a decision supporting a tripling of global renewable energy capacity by 2030.

Already, 123 nations have backed a voluntary pledge to do so, including Singapore and several other Asean nations. But by any measure, it is a huge challenge.

Global renewable energy capacity was 3,382 gigawatts (GW) in 2022. That needs to reach 11,174 GW in little more than six years and would cost an estimated US$10.4 trillion (S$14 trillion), according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena). And then it needs to keep going to reach a 91 per cent share of global power generation in 2050 from about 30 per cent in 2023.

And much of that investment needs to be channelled to poorer nations, says Irena, which so far has received only a fraction of global clean energy investments. 

“I call it ‘mission impossible’, like the movie,” said Irena director-general Francesco La Camera. “But is it achieveable? Yes, it is,” he told The Straits Times at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates on Dec 9.

Achieving the target would have big payoffs. A key goal of tripling global renewable energy, which would mainly include wind and solar, would be cutting greenhouse gas emissions by displacing fossil fuel use. Burning coal, oil and gas is the main source of emissions driving climate change.

It would also help reduce air pollution and bring electricity to millions of people still without access to power.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 567 million people lacked access to electricity in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Mr La Camera said there is an urgent need to invest in new grid infrastructure, roughly US$5 trillion by 2030. Current power grids are centralised, with power generated by big power stations, often near cities.

Grids powered by green energy have to be much more flexible; able to handle large amounts of variable wind and solar power, sometimes far from cities; and supported by battery storage and eventually green hydrogen or green ammonia power plants.

And there is a need for supporting policies to attract investors, plus robust green energy supply chains and training a renewable energy workforce.

Above all, there needs to be financial support. Wind and solar are now the cheapest form of electricity in most nations. But a major problem is access to affordable capital for poorer nations and overcoming perceptions of political risk.

Mr La Camera said there is abundant capital available and that multilateral development banks need to play a role by investing in the grid and other supporting infrastructure that will attract investors in poorer nations, many of which are deeply indebted, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Otherwise the risk is that these countries will miss out and the 2030 target might not be achieved.

Which is why there are calls for a final outcome from COP28 to ensure financial support for poorer nations and to agree on phasing out or phasing down fossil fuels to provide a strong signal of support for green energy.

“The tripling of renewables is very welcome but it’s not something that every developing country will be able to do on their own,” said Mr Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, an environmental group.

“Many of these countries would love to harness the abundant wind and solar potential but need help to do so,” he told ST. “And there’s no guarantee that just tripling renewables will result in a decrease of fossil fuels. That is why it needs to go hand in hand with a fossil fuel phase-out date.”

Global renewable energy investment is already growing rapidly. Renewables are set to meet all new power demand growth in 2023 and 2024, according to the IEA.

“The boom in renewables in 2023 is giving confidence that a tripling of renewables is achievable,” said Mr Dave Jones, global insights lead at Ember, a London-based think-tank.

“The clean, electrified energy system of the future will be cheaper, more efficient and more secure than our current system that relies on expensive fossil imports,” he said in a statement.

China is by far the world’s top renewable energy investor and manufacturer. It accounted for two-thirds of global growth in wind and solar generation in the first half of 2023, according to Ember.

Mr Tim Buckley, director of the Climate Energy Finance think-tank in Sydney, also agreed that the tripling target was achievable, with China taking the lead.

“China has installed 20GW per month of wind and solar in 2023, up 109 per cent year on year,” he told ST. It is also scaling up production of solar modules to meet global demand.

“We estimate that China would need to increase this to 30GW per month to add 2,600GW of new wind and solar by end-2030, adding to their existing 940GW already installed plus their 410GW of hydro.”

He said India has been installing about 15GW of wind and solar for each of the past five years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target of 50GW per annum (40 GW of solar, 10GW of wind) for the next five years.

Achieving this would meet most of India’s growing energy needs to support strong economic growth and increase India’s energy independence, Mr Buckley said.

Australia has also set a target of 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, from 38 per cent now, and the government has announced funding to improve the grid and other incentives to achieve the target.

Mr Buckley said a massive build-out of renewables will inevitably lead to reduction in fossil fuel use.

“Once built, renewable energy has a near-zero cost of operation. So it is an unfair fight,” he said. In China and India, cheaper renewable energy has already led to some coal power plants running at well below operational capacity.

And boosting renewable energy deployments will progressively cut imported diesel and oil demand in the automobile sector.

“China has reached a staggering 34 per cent electric vehicle penetration of new auto sales in October 2023,” he said.

Mr La Camera said there can be no compromise on the tripling target.

“It is what we need. We can need more but we cannot need less.”