Targeted Green Recovery Measures in a Post-COVID-19 World Enable the Energy Transition

Despite the significant volume of fiscal recovery measures announced by countries to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, most recovery plans allocate a low percentage to green recovery. We present scenarios exploring the medium- and long-term impact of the COVID-19 crisis and develop a Green Recovery scenario using three well-established global models to analyze the impact of a low-carbon focused stimulus. 

The results show that a Green Recovery scenario, with 1% of global GDP in fiscal support directed to mitigation measures for 3 years, could reduce global CO2 emissions by 10.5–15.5% below pre-COVID-19 projections by 2030, closing 8–11.5% of the emissions gap with cost-optimal 2°C pathways.

The share of renewables in global electricity generation is projected to reach 45% in 2030, the uptake of electric vehicles would be accelerated, and energy efficiency in the buildings and industry sector would improve. However, such a temporary investment should be reinforced with sustained climate policies after 2023 to put the world on a 2°C pathway by mid-century.

Authors

PBL Authors
Ioannis Dafnomilis Hsing-Hsuan Chen Michel den Elzen Heleen van Soest Detlef van Vuuren Vassilis Daioglou Oreane Edelenbosch Harmen Sytze de Boer
Other authors
Panagiotis Fragkos
Unnada Chewpreecha
Kostas Fragkiadakis
Panagiotis Karkatsoulis
Leonidas Paroussos
Bence Kiss-Dobronyi

Specifications

Publication title
Targeted Green Recovery Measures in a Post-COVID-19 World Enable the Energy Transition
Publication date
7 June 2022
Publication type
Article
Publication language
English
Magazine
Frontiers in Climate
Product number
4526