Earth Day: Cutting Edge Tech Could Drive $100 Trillion In GDP Growth

On the 50^th anniversary of the first Earth Day, the world faces stark choices about economic recovery, inequality, health care, energy and development. Two reports highlight how technology innovation can address global challenges and highlights how this could drive global GDP by $100 trillion.

In its first first Global Renewables Outlook, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) shows how promoting a renewables-based energy transition could meet climate goals. More importantly to many, in such turbulent economic times, it can do so through creating millions of job, improving human welfare and transforming the way we live.

The Outlook explores what is necessary to cut global CO2 emissions by at least 70 per cent by 2050. Building on five technology pillars, particularly green hydrogen and extended end-use electrification, its plans could help replace fossil-fuels and slash emissions in heavy industry and hard-to-decarbonise sectors.

Overall it sees the requirement for flexible power grids, efficiency solutions, electric vehicle charging, energy storage, interconnected hydropower, green hydrogen and other technology investments consistent with long-term energy and climate sustainability.

While the Outlook says a pathway to deeper decarbonisation will require total energy investment up to $130 trillion, the socio-economic gains of such an investment would be massive.  Transforming the energy system could boost cumulative global GDP gains above business-as-usual by $98 trillion between now and 2050. It would nearly quadruple renewable energy jobs to 42 million, expand employment in energy efficiency to 21 million and add 15 million in system flexibility.

IRENA’s Director-General Francesco La Camera said, “Governments are facing a difficult task of bringing the health emergency under control while introducing major stimulus and recovery measures. The crisis has exposed deeply embedded vulnerabilities of the current system. By accelerating renewables and making the energy transition an integral part of the wider recovery, governments can achieve multiple economic and social objectives in the pursuit of a resilient future that leaves nobody behind.”

Low-carbon investment would significantly pay off, with savings eight times more than costs when accounting for reduced health and environmental externalities. A climate-safe path would require cumulative energy investments of $110 trillion by 2050 but achieving full carbon neutrality would add another $20 trillion.

While the IRENA report specifically focuses on low carbon energy technologies, the ITU and the UN took the opportunity to mark Earth Day with the release of a report on technologies which could help cut emissions in cities, reduce natural disaster risk, provide smart water management and even precise climate monitoring.

These cutting-edge technologies include AI, 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), digital twin and robotics. The report argues that by integrating these technologies with low carbon energy technologies could really result in a transformation of the ways in which we work and live.  It emphasizes the overarching goal of this innovation, the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular SDG 13 on Climate Action. It also highlights the potential of frontier technologies to support the achievement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°c above pre-industrial levels.

This is incredibly important right now, as the impact of Covid-19 is changing people’s expectations of what they need to do, how they should work, and what matters to them most. This is a time for making positive choices for the future and taking advantage of the opportunity to take stock.

“COVID-19 has made clear that we are all interconnected and that our response must be collective, across countries and sectors and that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have an important role to play in accelerating solutions. How we respond to climate change, as one humanity, must follow the same principles,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao.

The potential is not simply the stimulation of economic growth but the potential for such technologies to help countries leap-frog the development pathways of history. What is required for this to be effective is a concerted effort on the part of all stakeholders, ensuring government support, global access and capacity building and the application of such technologies at scale.

While climate concerns have highlighted the failures in multilateral processes over the last few years, the impact of the covid crisis has been to highlight the vital importance of working together to address global challenges. This is no time to turn your back on your neighbour because it is only as a community that we can thrive.

At the moment there is angry debate about lifting lockdowns to enable people to go back to work. What we need is a rethink about how and what we want that work to be and a communal effort in how to achieve it