Renewables growth rate insufficient to reach 2030 target, says IRENA

LONDON (Reuters) - The world risks missing a goal to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 as the current growth rate is inadequate, a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) showed on Thursday.

CONTEXT

A U.N. climate change conference in Dubai last year set a goal of tripling renewable energy capacity worldwide by 2030 to more than 11 terawatts (TW). Countries have to submit new or updated climate target commitments every five years after 2020 so next year they have to include revised ambitions for 2030.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

About 473 gigawatts (GW) of capacity was added last year, representing a 14% increase from the year before and the largest annual growth since 2000, IRENA said in a report.

BY THE NUMBERS

To meet the target, the world will have to add renewables capacity at a minimum 16.4% rate annually to 2030. However, if last year's 14% increase rate continues, the 11 TW target will be 1.5 TW short.

If the world keeps its historic annual growth rate of 10%, it will only accumulate 7.5 TW of renewables capacity by 2030, missing the target by almost one third, IRENA data showed.

KEY QUOTE

"Renewable energy has been increasingly outperforming fossil fuels, but it is not the time to be complacent," said Francesco La Camera, director general of IRENA.

"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," he added.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)