Extremes in weather are accumulating in 2021. In February, it snowed heavily in the Middle East. In Jerusalem, snow lay on the Dome of the Rock and Israeli children could make snowmen. In July, more than 150 people died in Germany as a result of a flood disaster, and extreme temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius led to huge forest fires in North America, Russia and Mediterranean countries. Although not every one of these weather phenomena can be directly attributed to climate change, climate change is reflected in the growing frequency of extreme weather events.
Calls for effective global climate policy
Now the International Energy Agency (IEA) has presented a detailed decarbonisation scenario for the global economy. It calls for the consistent global expansion of renewable energies, electromobility, climate-neutral buildings and the hydrogen industry. Going forward, no more money should be spent on the additional extraction of coal, gas and oil. This is the only way to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Turning a new leaf
These demands are particularly remarkable because the IEA called for more oil to be extracted just 15 years ago, as oil would become scarce, it argued. Swisscanto expects that the current IEA roadmap at the COP26 climate summit (ukcop26.org) in November 2021 will receive a great deal of attention from politicians and will be discussed widely.
The International Energy Agency roadmap
The decarbonisation scenario pursues the goal of achieving net CO2 neutrality by 2050. The measures required according to the assessment of the IEA can be found in the following figure of the IEA.