Comment: As leaders at the UN debate how to meet renewable energy goals, they must also ensure supply chains are sustainable Wind turbines are seen near Foggia, Puglia, Italy, on September 1, 2023. (Photo: Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto) Mads Christensen is the international executive director of Greenpeace . In the two decades since Greenpeace launched its groundbreaking Energy Revolution scenarios in 2005, renewable energy uptake has accelerated at speeds most analysts could not have anticipated, but leaders at the UN General Assembly must act even more boldly. Greenpeace’s pioneering vision for the clean energy transition was once considered unrealistic, perhaps even idealistic – but given the rapid changes to the world’s power generation, the scenarios have been proven right and perhaps not even ambitious enough . It’s a charge, however, that can be more readily laid at current world leaders attending the UN General Assembly in New York this month who lack sufficient ambition. Under existing policies and targets, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found in June that renewable energy capacity would grow to 8,000 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, missing the target to triple capacity to 11,000 GW – an objective agreed at the UN climate talks COP28 in Dubai last year. Global goal of tripling renewables by 2030 still out of reach, says IRENA Political leaders must now turn that promise into action as part of a fast and fair fossil fuel phase-out. These are issues to also be discussed in New York at the first Global Renewables Summit , which I will attend, and where governments will be urged to ‘Now Deliver Change’. With new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for 2035 due by next February, it is essential they include robust policies and targets for renewable energy expansion, while also targeting the goal of doubling the annual rate […]
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