The world will fail to meet its goal to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 if capacity continues to grow at a sluggish rate, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
According to the IRENA report, 473GW of renewable capacity was added last year, a 14% increase from the year before and the largest annual growth since 2000.
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However, to meet the ambitious target, the world will have to add renewable capacity at a rate of 16.4% per year annually between now and 2030, according to IRENA. At the current 14% rate, the world will be 1.5TW short.
Francesco La Camera, director general of IRENA, said: “Renewable energy has been increasingly outperforming fossil fuels, but it is not the time to be complacent. If we continue with the current growth rate, we will only face failure in reaching the tripling renewables target agreed in the UAE Consensus at COP28.”
Certain industries are underperforming and could contribute more towards the shift to renewables. For instance, a recent report released by the American Clean Power Association highlighted that US offshore wind power capacity will reach 14GW by 2030, 16GW short of the 30GW goal set by the Biden administration in 2021.
The US currently has only 174MW of installed offshore wind capacity, vastly outgunned by its rival China, which has nearly 38GW.
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By GlobalDataFurthermore, according to figures released by the Energy Information Administration, US electricity generation from wind turbines decreased in 2023 for the first time since the 1990s, despite 6.2GW of wind capacity being installed in the past year.
Starting in 2020, participating countries in the Paris Agreement were required to submit new or updated climate targets every five years. Next year, they will have to include revised ambitions for 2030.
