Tracking the renewable energy transition

At the last climate summit in 2023, hosted by Dubai, international consensus could not be secured to phase out harmful fossil fuels completely. Instead, over 130 countries signed a pact to boost renewable energy production by 2030. While there has been impressive growth in renewables in the past few years, the world is still off-track to meet the goal of tripling renewable generation capacity in the next five years.

Producing more renewable energy is vital to enable a desperately needed shift away from fossil fuels, which are a leading cause of global warming. Renewable production is also vital for meeting the demand for electricity. Besides the imperative of providing electricity to more people, the demand for electricity-intensive appliances such as air conditioning is growing across our warming planet. Manufacturing processes have also become more electricity-intensive, and artificial intelligence needs a lot of electric power too.

Continued reliance on fossil fuels for energy will make the goal of limiting global heating to below 1.5C unattainable. Yet, governments are not keeping up with the UN-endorsed goal of quickly switching over to renewables. A recent report by Ember, an energy-focused thinktank, found only 22 countries to have sufficiently increased their renewable energy capabilities. Countries which have failed to meet their pledged targets include the US, China and Russia, which are amongst the world's largest energy users, and together emit almost half of the world's carbon emissions.

Middle Eastern countries seem caught between the contradictory imperatives of continued production and export of oil and gas and the need to invest in and adopt renewable energy sources. Fossil fuels still accounted for over two-thirds of the increase in power generation in India this past year, but it has set very ambitious energy transition targets for the next few years. While Pakistan is not a significant contributor to global carbon emissions, yet fossil fuels are a significant cause for its local air pollution menace. Pakistan also committed to sourcing 60% of its electricity from renewables by 2030, and it has achieved nearly half that target due to the growth of solar energy production.

Pakistan has become a huge market for solar panels being imported from China, making it the world's third-biggest importer of this revolutionary technology. According to experts, the solar boom in Pakistan is not spurred by the installation of big solar farms by the government or the private sector. Instead, it is ordinary people who are spearheading the demand for solar energy. Exorbitant electricity prices due to expensive power generation agreements signed decades ago with private power producers have compelled people to turn to the increasingly economical solar option.

Besides providing a much-needed energy alternative for middle-class consumers, solar panels offer the prospect of bringing electricity to marginalised communities which still lack access to the national grid. Solar panels are also being used to replace diesel-powered pumps to extract groundwater for agricultural purposes, which is a concerning issue that requires further deliberation given the growing water scarcity in the country.

Even if Pakistan manages to continue lessening its dependence on fossil fuels, its goal of reducing harmful emissions will need more proactive action. Pakistan had also set itself the target of ensuing that 30% of all new car sales would be comprised of electric vehicles, but little progress has been achieved in this regard. Tangible progress concerning this specific target would have significant domestic benefit, given that vehicular emissions are the most serious cause of recurrent winter smog, especially in the Punjab. Besides promoting the use of electric vehicles, including in the public transport sector, Pakistan needs to hasten efforts to exit its onerous fossil fuel-based power purchase agreements, which will remove existing impediments to further harnessing the power of renewables.