BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 23. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen emphasized the rapid progress in the global shift toward clean energy during the “All Hands on Deck for the Energy Transition” panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trend reports.
“The world is moving faster than ever towards clean energy. Last year alone, global spending on clean energy hit a record of $2 trillion. For every dollar invested in fossil fuels, you had $2 invested in renewable energy. And the power sector clean energy investments outnumber fossil fuel by 10 to 1,” said von der Leyen.
She noted that the transition is a result of years of effort and bold targets set at COP28. “We said we will triple renewable energy, and we will double energy efficiency by 2030. It is evident the clean energy transition is happening, and it is there to stay. And this is not only good news for the planet. This is also good news for innovation. It is good news for energy independence because this is homegrown energy. It creates good jobs at home. It’s good for the economic competitiveness. And last but certainly not least, it lowers energy bills, so it’s good for households and businesses.”
Von der Leyen outlined three key goals for sustaining this momentum. “First, we have to sustain the momentum of our historic global energy agreement. These global energy targets must find their way in the next wave of nationally determined contributions, the famous NDCs. We need to turn collective promises into measurable progress. In Europe, we’ve raised our renewable target for 2030 to over 42%. Today we are at 23%, so it’s lots of good and hard work ahead of us. Fifty percent of our electricity now comes from renewables. But you all know the principle—only what gets measured gets done. This is why we rely on the trusted partnership with the International Energy Agency to measure this progress of our goals,” she said.
She also stressed the importance of turning targets into action. “Our second goal, we have to turn these targets into very concrete projects. This is why under Brazil’s COP leadership, this forum will focus on flagship initiatives, for example, projects that bring power to underserved communities or projects that jumpstart new clean industries and scale up clean energy globally. With that, we can learn from each other, we can exchange best practices, and have progress in concrete projects so it really changes the life of people on the ground,” she said.
Finally, von der Leyen called for increased investment to accelerate progress. “If we want to be faster, we need more investment. And I’m very glad that the UK is leading this change. Together we will champion smarter financing with de-risking tools, blended finance, other solutions to lower costs, and attract private capital. We can also learn from African governments who are introducing tax breaks, public-private partnerships, renewable energy incentives, and we see already that these efforts are bearing fruit. Because in the last two years, clean energy investments in Africa nearly doubled already,” she added.
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