A coalition of wind industry players is calling on the G20 leaders to speed up the development of renewable energy projects in order to prevent the worst effects of climate change.
Renewable energy. Credit: hrui / Shutterstock
A coalition of energy leaders has urged the G20 summit governments to increase investment in renewable energy. Credit: hrui / Shutterstock
23 CEOs from companies such as Orsted, Vestas and Siemens Gamesa signed an open letter urging governments to increase national energy ambitions and layout plans to swiftly phase out fossil fuels.
They represent the Global Wind Energy Coalition for the COP26 summit, due to be held in Glasgow this November. The G7 summit, which saw the seven largest global economies meet for talks, spurred some level of commitment towards tackling climate change.
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They acknowledge some steps have been taken in combatting climate change but are urging the G20 summit to do better to meet the 2.5°C targets laid out by the Paris Climate Agreement.
The coalition hopes to put renewables at the front of the G20's mind. The combined energy use of the top 20 economies equates to roughly 80% of the world total carbon emissions.
Other signatories include the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), SSE, RE and various industry representatives from G20 nations, such as the UK, Brazil, China and Mexico.
Rebecca Williams, the COP26 director for the Global Wind Energy Council said: “G20 countries have huge amounts of untapped wind power potential which can fulfil significant portions of national electricity demand, but they are barely scratching the surface of what they can deploy.
“With the current pace of wind power installations across the world, forecasts show that we will only install less than half of the wind power capacity needed to get to net-zero by 2050."
If current growth rates for wind energy persist, the letter argues that global wind capacity will fall dramatically short of the volumes required for carbon neutrality by 2050, with installation shortfalls of as much as 43% by 2050.
The letter highlights the IEA's recent roadmap that shows annual wind deployment must quadruple from 93 GW in 2020 to 390 GW in 2030 to meet the 2050 net-zero targets.
The IEA predicts a wind capacity of 8,265 GW will be needed to meet the 2050 goals.
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GWEC CEO Ben Blackwell said: "G20 member countries represent more than 80% of global energy-related carbon emissions – so the leaders of these countries hold the power and public duty to transform the world’s energy system.
"These countries need to get serious about renewables, and in particular wind energy as the clean energy solution with the most potential to help the world meet its Paris Agreement targets."
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