'Step-change' in energy investment needed to meet climate goals: IEA

The world must double spending on renewable power and slash investment in oil and coal by 2030 to keep the Paris climate treaty temperature targets in play, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Tuesday.

For that to happen, however, trend lines on both fronts moved in the wrong direction last year, the agency reported in its 4th annual World Energy Investment overview.

Money going into new upstream oil and gas projects -- exploration, drilling and infrastructure -- rose four per cent in 2018, while investment in new coal sources went up by two per cent, the first increase in that sector since 2012.

At the same time, investment in new renewable power of all kinds dipped by about two per cent.

In total, global energy investment in 2018 -- split across the fuel supply and electric power sectors -- totalled USD 1.85 trillion, about the same as in 2017, the IEA reported.

This two-year plateau following three years of slow decline reflects uncertainty across the industry as to what the future holds.

"Governments have not clearly committed, nor have they clearly not committed, to reaching the Paris Agreement goals," Mike Waldron, an IEA energy investment analyst, told journalists ahead of the report's release.

The 2015 treaty enjoins nations to cap global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).

A landmark UN report in October concluded that CO2 emissions must drop 45 per cent by 2030 -- and reach "net zero" by 2050 -- if the rise in Earth's temperature is to be checked at the safer limit of 1.5C.

The planet's surface has already warmed 1C since industrialisation began, and is on track to heat up another 3C by century's end -- a recipe for human misery on a global scale, scientists say.

The lack of clear policy direction on climate change has steered energy investors towards projects with shorter lead times, and could contribute to a future gap between supply and demand, according to the report.

On current trends, money going to develop all types of energy -- especially oil, gas and coal -- will fail to meet projected global energy needs over the next decade, it found.

"The world is not investing enough in traditional elements of supply to maintain today's consumption patterns," IEA executive director Fatih Birol said. "Nor is it investing enough in cleaner energy technologies to change course."
"Whichever way you look, we are storing up for risks in the future."