IEA: Green transition ‘delayed by decades’

A lack of international collaboration risks undermining efforts to decarbonise polluting sectors and could lead to decades of delay on the road towards net zero emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said yesterday.

At last November's COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, 45 countries vowed to work together on the deployment of green tech across a variety of sectors including electricity, transport and agriculture.

Against the backdrop of surging energy prices and the threat of a global food crisis, the IEA urged nations to use the coming COP27 meeting in Egypt to accelerate progress towards net zero emissions by decades and boost food security for billions of people worldwide.

Greater coordination between countries would make key green technologies cheaper for developing nations to deploy at scale, the IEA said. Its report, requested by world leaders to check on the initiative's progress, noted some achievements, including a doubling of sales of electric vehicles to some 6.6 million units in 2021.