IEA Roadmap: “Net Zero Needs All Clean Technologies, Nuclear Included”

The International Energy Agency recently published the report, Net Zero by 2050: a Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector, which shows what needs to be done today to ensure the opportunity of net-zero emissions by 2050 is not lost.

According to the IEA executive director Fatih Birol:

Our roadmap shows the priority actions that are needed today to ensure the opportunity of net-zero emissions by 2050 – narrow but still achievable – is not lost.

The scale and speed of the efforts demanded by this critical and formidable goal – our best chance of tackling climate change and limiting global warming to 1.5 °C – make this perhaps the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced.

The Net Zero Emissions roadmap sets out more than 400 milestones to guide to the net-zero goal by 2050.

From today, there should be no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects, and no further final investment decisions for new unabated coal plants.

By 2035, there are no sales of new internal combustion engine passenger cars. By 2040, the global electricity sector could have already reached net-zero emissions.

The roadmap warns that staying on the path to net-zero emissions requires “immediate and massive deployment of all available clean and efficient energy technologies”.

Hydropower and nuclear, the two largest sources of low-carbon electricity today, provide an essential foundation for transitions.

About important decisions to be made concerning nuclear power, the report stresses notably lifetime extensions, the pace of new construction and the extent of government support for advanced nuclear technologies, particularly those related to small modular reactors and high‐temperature gas reactors, both of which can expand markets for nuclear power beyond electricity.

Read the full Net Zero by 2050: a Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector available online.