Pandemic Stricken Sustainable Energy Sector
The year of 2020 has been one of the toughest years for the entire world, which has been in the deadly grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the worst economic shock the countries of the world has faced in the recent decades. It has adversely affected different sectors and only a few were able to thrive (IT sector). These range from industries such as supply chains, airlines, restaurants (one of the biggest businesses in the world), recreational industry. It has also severely impacted the energy sector and even the volatile sustainable sector that is still in its infancy compared to the maturity of other energy sources. The pandemic has stricken the sustainable energy sector in such a way that the progress looks uneven.
It has become a matter for great concern especially considering the fact that although the call for changing our fossil fuel dependent world to clean energy has been there, the already established energy behemoths were taking their sweet time to achieve transition.
This is not to say that there has been no progress. There have been some impressive changes and more of them looked positive before this crisis.
Renewable Power Sector
Many technologies such as rail, lighting and electric mobility were on the right path in achieving their respective sustainability goals in 2019 as per the IEA’s Tracking Clean Energy report. Moreover, the rise in renewables was up my 28% in 2020 compared to the 26% in 2019. Although that seems positive in its face, it is only because of the ongoing projects that has been completed in the first quarter of 2020. Because of the global disruption, the renewable additions of 2020 is less than what it was in 2019, a figure around 13%; but the silver lining is that all the delayed electricity based renewable projects may come into fruition in 2021.
In contrast, the renewable transport sectors based on biofuel and renewable heat technologies have gone behind in support and progress because of the pandemic induced low oil and gas prices, which has rendered these sectors at a disadvantage.
High Risk Sectors
Beyond the power sectors, the likes of aviation, shipping and heavy industries were already facing difficulty in achieving sustainability goals such as reducing the rate of emissions while pursuing more sustainable practices. The pandemic has stripped whatever improvement these industries were striving toward and put them in a ‘safe mode’ situation where staying afloat and surviving have become the goals. This is mainly because of the their highly volatile operational methods and lack of alternative technologies to fall back to in case something goes wrong, which obviously impacts the profits and consequently sidelines their attention on sustainability practices.
Energy associated Emission Levels
According to the detailed analysis of IEA’s Global Energy Review, the emission levels have greatly reduced in 2020 but not due to our abatement efforts as one would expect, but because of the global setback caused by this health crisis. The pandemic has drastically exacerbated unemployment, economic downturn which is responsible for this short-term fall of emissions. As per the statistics available the emissions have reduced by 8% in 2020, however, this is far from something that is ideal as we were not even on track to make the environment carbon free since the required reduction, of an yearly 6%, was not achieved even during the times before the pandemic.
The emission rates could bounce back as soon as the crisis is over and as economies recover.
All that said, it is up to the governments to continue promoting the transition into renewables by allowing flow of more investments when they are trying to reinvigorate a battered economy. The authorities should not turn a blind eye to this because the renewable technology costs are going down as years pass and promoting them in their economy recovery measures will lead to job creation, thus more economic development while also taking a step towards a more a sustainable future.