Solar investments will outdo oil for the first time in 2023, the International Energy Agency predicts, likely surpassing £1bn a day globally.
“If these clean energy investments continue to grow in line with what we have seen in the past few years […] we will soon start to see a very different energy system emerging and we can keep the 1.5C goal alive,” executive director Fatih Birol said.
Energy investments will likely sit around US$2.8trn in 2023, the IEA forecast in a report, with US$1.7trn directed toward renewables and US$1trn spent on fossil fuels.
This would mark a 7.6% rise on 2022’s clean energy investments, alongside a 23.5% jump compared with 2021, when the pandemic kickstarted the global energy crisis and led to huge rises in fossil fuel prices.
China is on course to invest the most in clean energy, at US$184bn this year, followed by US$154bn among European Union nations and US$97bn by the United States.
Volatility among energy prices and supply fears following the outbreak of war in Ukraine has largely pushed clean investments up, alongside global recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Joe Biden’s US$369bn Inflation Reduction Act has also played a key part, the report added, given incentives of tax credits and subsidies for green technology firms.
However, investments in fossil fuels are still set to rise by 6% this year, the report said, following higher spending plans on the back of record profits, reported by the likes of Shell PLC and BP PLC.
Birol called for “more of a parallel between what the heads of the international and national oil companies say about […] about climate change and what they do in terms of their investment”.