Emerging countries could decarbonize their power grids with $130bn/yr for the next 10 years, according to a group of economists formed to advise the UN Cop 30 climate summit's presidency.
That level of spending is enough to decarbonize those countries' electricity grids but would not include other sectors such as transportation, the group's leader Jose Alexandre Scheinkman — an economist at Columbia University in New York City — said 14 October at the pre-Cop being held in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia. The study that reached that figure is led by Patrick Bolton, another economist in the group who is a professor at Imperial College London.
Scheinkman, whose work focuses on economic plans to mitigate climate change, explained that governments would be responsible for 25pc of those costs with the private sector covering the remainder. The best bet to cover the 25pc would be through catalytic funds, he added, mentioning Brazil's Eco Invest as an example of a successful catalytic fund.
But he did not detail which emerging countries the study entails.
Scheinkman also commented on the roadmap to scale up climate finance from all sources to developing nations to $1.3 trillion/yr. "When you think of goals such as this, first you need to find out how to implement the projects and then think of the cheapest way possible to reach it," he said. "The $1.3 trillion/yr goal was not reached in any such process, but it is nevertheless important," he added.
NDCs not enough for Paris limit
The world is moving towards an increase of 2.7°C — very far from the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C as set forth in the Paris Agreement — even if all countries meet their nationally determined contribution, Scheinkman said.
"Science is not giving us good news", he said. "Greenhouse gases continue to increase and we reached a new record in 2024."
Six international science and weather institutions have separately found that 2024 was the hottest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The global average surface temperature in 2024 was 1.55°C above the pre-industrial average, with a margin of uncertainty of 0.13°C either above or below that figure, WMO found in its analysis of the six datasets.
There is an 80pc chance that "at least" one of the next five years will surpass 2024 as the hottest on record, WMO said.
