为实现气候目标 能源创新支出需增加两倍

据彭博社7月2日报道，国际能源署(International energy Agency)称，政府在发展清洁能源技术方面的支出在未来10年内需要增加两倍，以避免气候变化带来最坏影响。

随着风力发电和太阳能发电的迅速发展，电力排放大大减少，其他重工业仍需开发新技术来减少碳足迹。国际能源署总干事法提赫·比罗尔在接受采访时表示，为了尽快实现本世纪中叶的气候目标，各国政府需要在2030年前加大对清洁能源研发的投入。

比罗尔表示：“如果没有更快的清洁能源创新，在2050年实现净零目标几乎是不可能的。设定雄心勃勃的气候目标是一个勇敢的政策决定，但实现这些目标需要的不仅仅是勇气。”

根据国际能源署关于清洁能源创新的特别报告，虽然许多减少高污染行业碳排放的技术已经存在，但这些技术需要资金来开发，以备在工业规模上使用。使世界走上可持续发展道路所需的减排，将有一半以上来自目前处于初始阶段的技术，包括不需要煤就能炼钢，在电解槽中分解水来生产氢。

重工业的投资周期一般为25年，下一轮投资预计在2030年左右开始。随着世界各国政府都在寻求投资数十亿或数万亿美元，以使经济体摆脱经济衰退。因此，调整这些投资，为新清洁技术创造市场，可以避免锁定排放，从而推迟实现关键气候目标的时间计划。国际能源署的报告称，如果在这些新兴市场上投入资金，可以减少多达600亿吨的排放，这大约是2019年全球排放量的两倍。

王佳晶 摘译自 彭博社

原文如下：

Energy Innovation Spend Needs to Triple by 2030 to Hit Climate Goals

Government spending to develop clean energy technologies needs to triple this decade in order to prevent the worst effects of climate change, according to the International Energy Agency.

As the rapid acceleration of wind and solar farms have significantly decreased emissions from electricity, other emissions-heavy industries still need to develop new technologies to reduce their carbon footprint. To scale up fast enough to reach mid-century climate goals, governments will need to ramp up spending on clean energy research and development by 2030, the IEA’s executive director Fatih Birol said in an interview.

“In the absence of much faster clean energy innovation, achieving net zero goals in 2050 will be all but impossible,” Birol said. “Setting ambitious climate goals is a courageous policy decision, but realizing them requires more than courage.”

While many technologies to reduce carbon emissions from high-polluting sectors like steel and chemical production and shipping already exist, they will need funding to develop to the point that they’re ready to be deployed at industrial scale, according to IEA’s special report on clean energy innovation. More than half of the emissions reductions needed to get the world on a sustainable path will come from technologies that are currently at the prototype stage, including producing steel without the need for coal, or early-adoption stage, such as producing hydrogen from splitting water in electrolyzers.

Heavy industries generally invest in 25-year cycles, with the next round expected to begin around 2030. As governments around the world look to invest billions or trillions of dollars to pull economies out of the coronavirus-triggered slump, aligning those investments to create markets for new clean technologies can avoid locking in emissions that would delay the timeline for hitting crucial climate goals. As much as 60 billion tons of emissions, about twice what the world spewed out in 2019, could be prevented if money is spent in these new markets, the IEA’s report said.