Meeting global climate goals depends on united collaboration between countries in the field of clean technology innovations. This is a suggestion by International Energy Agency (IEA) in its latest report. The report was released together with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the U.N. Climate Change High-Level Champions.
Global actions to lessen greenhouse gas emissions to net zero emissions are jeopardized by a lack of cooperation, the report states. Efforts to stop rising the temperatures are slowed for the same reason.
Clean-tech collaborations will speed up the agenda
As IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said at the presentation of the first Breakthrough Agenda report, we can speed up the agenda from the Paris agreement and make it cheaper and easier if we collaborate internationally. The alternative is a delay of maybe decades.
The report offers 25 recommendations to improve international collaboration in the field of clean tech and clean energy in general. IEA recommends developing broader cross-border power super grids. That will support international clean energy exchange produced from wind and solar power.
The other suggestion IES made is for the countries to agree on the date when all new-produced vehicles will be zero emission. IES’s proposal is 2035 for cars and small transportation vehicles, and 2040 for heavy transportation vehicles to electric.
Countries should also work to increase the production of low-carbon steel, IEA suggests.
Big economies to help others to meet climate goals
The major economies are already taking steps to reach net zero emissions by 2050. But switching to green production requires considerable finances and know-how that developing countries lack. Thus, it is important for more powerful nations to help others by investing in common technology as agreed at last year’s COP climate conference in Glasgow.
Clean technology collaboration will lessen the pollution produced in the sectors of power, steel, and hydrogen production. Also, it will cut a great amount the CO2 emissions from the agricultural sector and road transport. Taken together, these five industries create some 60% of the entire global gas emissions.