4,500 billion dollars a year are enough to stop global warming

For the International Energy Agency, the 1.5 degree objective "is within reach" if 4,500 billion dollars a year are invested between now and 2030.

• According to the ministers meeting at the summit of the International Energy Agency, the goal of staying within 1.5 degrees of increase in average global temperature "is within reach", if 4,500 billion dollars a year were invested between now and 2030.
• The IEA summit formalized the opening of talks with India in view of its membership of the agency, with a view to increasing collaboration with the main growing economies.
• Alongside the commitment to the transition, however, the commitment to energy security reaffirms the importance of the supply of gas and oil, as well as nuclear research.

The objective of remaining within the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) increase in global temperatures, established with the Paris Agreement of 2015, to remain “at hand” it needs at least 4,500 billion dollars of investments per year between now and 2030, global financial flows that will have to heavily incentivize transitions towards clean energy, especially in emerging and developing economies.An enormous figure, which is contained in the final document signed by the 31 Energy Ministers (for Italy, the Minister for the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin) at the end of the fiftieth summit of the International Energy Agency , which took place this week in Paris.

Put like that, 4,500 billion dollars a year seems like an enormous figure.But this is still less than double what the world spends per year today in armaments, 2,240 billion dollarsthe, on a planet whose global gross domestic product stands at around 105 trillion:Put this way, $4.5 trillion represents the 4 percent of global GDP, something certainly more reassuring.

The International Energy Agency's commitment to "energy security and transition"

A summit, and a document, which also reiterated the "strong commitment" to safeguard energy security at a global level, put into crisis both by the conflict in Ukraine and by the new instability throughout the Middle East, thus definitively establishing the inseparability of the two concepts: energy security and transition. A combination that is certainly right to maintain in principle, but behind which the resistance of the fossil industry sometimes seems to hide, which in fact emerges strengthened even at the end of this summit.

The International Energy Agency meeting, co-chaired by the Irish Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan and by the French Minister of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty Bruno Le Maire, also gave the energy agency a strong mandate to deepen cooperation with major emerging economies:in this sense the real news is thestart of discussions with India, a major world power and one of the most polluting countries, on its application for full membership of the IEA and the announcement of the creation of a regional cooperation center in Singapore to extend the Agency's engagement in the South East Asian and beyond.

The summit, among other things, took place a few months after the Cop28 in Dubai, the climate change conference where nearly 200 governments reached a key agreement, in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, on phasing out fossil fuels, on tripling renewable energy capacity, double progress in energy efficiency and reduce methane emissions.In particular, the leaders reaffirm “the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 from international fossil fuel supply chains, including at least 75 percent of methane emissions, in line with the scenario net zero emissions by 2050. In particular, the International Energy Agency is convinced that it is possible, with the right effort, to triple the installed capacity of energy from renewable sources globally by 2030.

Noting the "significant contribution of the Agency to global energy and climate policy" and in deepening the relations of the IEA (which today represents almost 80 percent of the world's GDP, and therefore also the majority of emissions and energy consumption) with developing economies, the ministers in the final document invited the IEA to "continue to put climate change and sustainable development together with energy security at the center of its activities and analyses”.The final text also invites the International Energy Agency to take a leading role in ensuring the implementation of the objectives set by COP28:“We call on the IEA to continue to monitor and report our performance against key commitments, identifying barriers to progress and providing members and the broader global community with recommendations on how to accelerate our national safe and clean energy transitions.” .

India's accession talks

Another fundamental result is the official start of discussions with India, in response to the request made by the Indian government in October 2023, for the Asian giant's future full membership of the International Energy Agency.The ministers recognized India's "strategic importance" in addressing global energy and climate challenges.India joined the IEA Family as an associated country in 2017.“India is the fastest growing large economy in the world.Sustained growth needs energy security and sustainability,” the prime minister said Indian Narendra Modi in a video speech to the participants of the ministerial meeting.“I am sure that the IEA will benefit when India plays a bigger role in it.”

In line with the IEA's efforts to deepen its engagement with emerging and developing economies, Energy Ministers and the Government of Singapore have announced the creation of a new regional center of the International Energy Agency in Singapore to increase engagement and impact in Southeast Asia.Although still far away, the mere idea of ​​India joining goes in the direction hoped for, again in the final document, of increase investments in clean energy in emerging economies and in developing countries, where high financing costs and difficulties in accessing capital are actually holding back energy transitions

Another point on which the leaders are committed is to develop a program - on a voluntary basis, therefore not binding on the member countries - for safety of critical minerals, which would seek to increase the security of supply chains of crucial minerals needed for clean energy technologies.

The (long) paragraphs on gas, oil and nuclear

However, fossil fuels still found ample space among the results of the summit:in fact, two long paragraphs of the final document are dedicated respectively to gas safety and oil safety.The International Energy Agency has once again underlined theimportance of security of oil supply for the global economy and the key role played by the IEA oil storage system.THE capture and storage systems (CSS) of CO2, however, are nothing more than a sort of technological shortcut, which the fossil industry likes, because it would allow it to continue producing energy without giving up extracting and burning gas and oil.Moreover, the final document admits that between now and 2050 "conventional oil and gas projects are needed”.

Naturally, there is also the chapter dedicated to nuclear power, now officially cleared among clean energies:the final text states that “those countries that choose to use it they recognize its potential as an energy source clean energy that can reduce dependence on fossil fuels, address the climate crisis and improve global energy security.These countries recognize nuclear energy as a baseload energy source, providing grid stability and flexibility and optimizing the use of grid capacity.”It is no coincidence that he insisted on this point the Italian minister Pichetto Fratin, in his statement at the end of the event, saying he was "particularly satisfied for having jointly reached an agreement on a shared text on nuclear energy:supporting research and innovation in this sector is an aspect in which Italy is investing forcefully, also within the G7 context.In fact, we believe that nuclear power, through its future incarnations such as small modular reactors and fusion, will be able to offer a significant contribution to the energy transition and to a sustainable energy future."It is no coincidence that Italy has established the platform for sustainable nuclear power:today, Italy collaborates with the French Iter project for fusion and is engaged in studies for the creation of mini reactors.