Targeted Green Recovery Measures in a Post-COVID-19 World Enable the Energy Transition

Abstract

Despite the significant volume of fiscal recovery measures announced by countries to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, most recovery plans allocate a low percentage to green recovery. We present scenarios exploring the medium- and long-term impact of the COVID-19 crisis and develop a Green Recovery scenario using three well-established global models to analyze the impact of a low-carbon focused stimulus. The results show that a Green Recovery scenario, with 1% of global GDP in fiscal support directed to mitigation measures for 3 years, could reduce global CO2 emissions by 10.5–15.5% below pre-COVID-19 projections by 2030, closing 8–11.5% of the emissions gap with cost-optimal 2°C pathways. The share of renewables in global electricity generation is projected to reach 45% in 2030, the uptake of electric vehicles would be accelerated, and energy efficiency in the buildings and industry sector would improve. However, such a temporary investment should be reinforced with sustained climate policies after 2023 to put the world on a 2°C pathway by mid-century.

COVID-19 recovery packages can benefit climate targets and clean energy jobs, but scale of impacts and optimal investment portfolios differ among major economies

“…23 Regarding the estimation on the potential outcomes of post-pandemic green recovery, modeling efforts have shed light on the gap between pledged recovery packages and the Paris-compliant investment needs, 24 as well as the impacts of possible green ways forward. 25,26 However, of these studies, only one considered employment implications 26 from a macroeconometric perspective and, like similar macroeconomic modeling studies, [27][28][29][30][31] provided only aggregated economy-wide insights. There is evidence from the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 that renewable energy stimulus has a higher jobs impact than other stimulus measures.…”

Achieving net‐zero emissions targets: An analysis of long‐term scenarios using an integrated assessment model

“…More specifically, we used a modeling protocol 26 updated from Roelfsema et al., 34 including a detailed spreadsheet listing policies by country to implement current policies in the IMAGE model. The CurPol scenario also considers the short‐term (2020–2025) economic projections updated to include the implications of the COVID‐19 pandemic, including changes in sectoral activity 35 . The emission development after 2030 assumes that countries will pursue equivalent effort (see below).…”

“…The CurPol scenario also considers the short-term (2020-2025) economic projections updated to include the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, including changes in sectoral activity. 35 The emission development after 2030 assumes that countries will pursue equivalent effort (see below).…”

The impact of policy and model uncertainties on emissions projections of the Paris Agreement pledges

“…12 www.climatepolicydatabase.org. scenario [9,30], including the impacts of COVID-19 [31] (supplementary text 3). For this study, the current policies scenario projections for the IMAGE SSP1 and SSP3 scenarios were calculated using the same methodology [30] 13 .…”