BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 22. It is expected that $570 billion will be spent on new oil and gas development and exploration every year until 2030, Trend reports via the latest publication from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
According to the report, investors and financial institutions globally have already committed to fund fossil fuel development projects way on top of the limit needed to achieve the 1.5°C target.
"Over the six years following the Paris Climate Agreement, some large multi-national banks maintained and even increased their investments in fossil fuels at an average of about $750 billion per year. The world’s 60 largest commercial banks invested around $4.6 trillion in fossil fuels between 2015 and 2021, more than one-quarter of which came from the US banks," the IRENA noted.
At the same time, as the agency noted, when considering only new generation capacity, investment in new renewable energy facilities was consistently higher between 2015 and 2021 than in new fossil fuel-fired power plants. For instance, on average, $339 billion per year was committed globally for renewable power generation, compared to $135 billion for fossil fuel power generation.
However, given the investments in production, processing and infrastructure, capital investments in fossil fuels - an average of $991 billion annually between 2015 and 2022 - were nearly three times higher, than renewable energy investments ($360 billion annually on average).