DNV warns electrification ‘not enough’ to meet net zero

Now in its fifth year, the report provides an independent forecast of global energy developments toward 2050. It claims that the pandemic has been a ‘lost opportunity’ for speeding up the energy transition, as Covid-19 recovery packages have mainly focused on protecting rather than transforming existing industries.

The COP21 Paris Agreement was intended to keep global warming to ‘well below 2°C’ and limit its increase to 1.5°C, however DNV’s report forecasts global emissions to reduce by only nine per cent by 2030 with the 1.5°C carbon budget agreed by global economies emptied by then.

Despite electrification being on course to double in size within a generation, with renewables recognised as the most competitive source of new power, the DNV said that the transition remains ‘definitively not fast enough’ for the world to achieve its net zero goal and that the planet will ‘most likely’ reach global warming of 2.3°C by the end of the century.