World’s emerging markets raise green goals but follow-through ‘critical and incomplete’: BNEF

Analyst house’s annual Climatescope report finds 92% of developing nations led by Chile have set long-term renewable energy targets, yet underlines progress will hinge on implementation

Aerial view of hundreds solar panels in the Atacama Desert, Chile.Foto: Shutterstock

Darius Snieckus

More than nine in 10 of the world’s developing nations have now set long-term renewable energy targets but follow-through remains “critical and incomplete”, BloombergNEF had found in its latest Climatescope report.

Policymakers in countries including Chile, India, Colombia, Croatia and China lead 92% of emerging markets that have made “public commitments to install and consume certain volumes of renewable power with specific deadlines”, said the analyst house, up from 82% a year earlier and 67% in 2019.

Yet, as Climatescope project manger Sofia Maia noted, “without supporting regulations, policy implementation alone [will not] guarantee that a country attracts the amount of investment needed to kick off its energy transition.

“Among the 15 developed and emerging nations that finished at the bottom of the Climatescope power policy scoring table, only one managed to secure more than $2bn in clean power investment from 2017 to 2021.”

Among reasons cited by BNEF in its latest Climatescope – which provides “snapshots” of clean energy policy expected to result in future capital deployment for project development – for the raised energy transition commitments are “a desire to demonstrate progress ahead of the COP27 global climate talks, anxiety over energy security amid rising fossil fuel prices, fears about climate change, or simply the appeal of building renewables because they are affordable”.

Chile was the highest scorer in this year’s Climatecope in large part due to its increasing its target to reach 40% clean power generation by 2030, after already meeting a 2025 target five years early.

India’s “ambitious policy framework and extremely competitive renewable energy market” led to in the country finishing in second position, while China – the global leader in clean energy manufacturing, deployment and finance – has “consistently landed” in the top five and was third.

The latest Climatescope pointed to “promising signs of progress”, said Ethan Zindler, head of Americas research at BNEF, with 56% of emerging markets now with policies set to hold reverse auctions for clean power delivery contracts, up from 49% last year.

“A programme to hold reverse auctions for clean-power delivery contracts is only useful if a country actually executes on such auctions,” he said.

“We have seen plenty of examples of countries that have set long-term goals, passed short-term policies, but failed to properly implement them.”

China had the highest wind and solar capacity additions in 2022, wiring in 42.1GW and 68.6GW of the two resources, respectively. The US followed with 15.1GW of new wind and 24.5GW of solar.

Vietnam added 13.5GW of wind and India 12.4GW of solar to take third place in these categories.

The 2022 edition of Climatescope details information on 107 emerging markets and 29 developed nations.

World’s emerging markets raise green goals but follow-through ‘critical and incomplete’: BNEF

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