By Matthew Green
LONDON (Reuters) - The world could get on track to avert catastrophic climate change by investing a tenth of a planned $12 trillion in pandemic recovery packages in reducing dependence on fossil fuels, according to a study published on Thursday.
With the stimulus representing about 15% of global gross domestic product, or three times the commitment after the 2008 financial crisis, scientists say the money could prove pivotal in meeting the temperature goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
"It makes absolute sense not just to keep your economy alive with palliative care, but to restructure your economy so it's future-ready," Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, and a co-author of the paper, told Reuters.
The most ambitious goal in the Paris accord aims to cap the rise in global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius, which scientists say could avert far more intense disasters, from wildfires and hurricanes to storm surges and floods.
The world could start to bring that target within reach if governments used 10% of the planned stimulus to back climate-friendly projects such as renewable energy or energy efficiency every year for the next five years, according to the paper, published in the journal Science.
Public and private investors would also need to slash investment in fossil fuel-heavy sectors from a projected $1.1 trillion per year over the next five years under existing climate plans, to closer to $800 billion, to begin pivoting the global economy towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
While the European Union, Germany, France, South Korea and various others have pledged to support a low-carbon shift, governments have so far mostly used rescue packages to prop up business as usual, according to separate research by Energy Policy Tracker https://www.energypolicytracker.org, a nonprofit research project.
Among G20 countries, the tracker has identified $393 billion worth of government commitments to transport, buildings, power and extractive industries. Of this total, $209 billion directly supported the production and consumption of fossil fuels, and $145 billion went to renewable energy.
"Public commitments since the pandemic are so far critically insufficient to meet Paris targets," Ivetta Gerasimchuk, sustainable energy lead at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, who works on the tracker, told Reuters.
(This story corrects figure in first paragraph to $12 trillion from $2 trillion)