Less than three years after fossil fuel prices hit an all time high and the world plunged into its deepest recession since the Great Depression, geopolitical events are driving prices steadily higher. The short‐term risks to political stability and economic activity posed by the world’s dependence on fossil fuels are again as manifest as its long‐term threat to environmental sustainability. To break this dependency, the world needs a clean energy revolution. Such a revolution would enhance global energy security, promote enduring economic growth and tackle environmental challenges such as anthropogenic climate change. It would break the long‐standing link between economic growth and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions once and for all. But to succeed, it must also be truly global in scope. Even if countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) somehow drove their emissions to zero, on today’s path emissions from non‐OECD countries would still lead to environmental disasters on an epic scale.

 

Such a sweeping revolution will require unprecedented investments in research, development, demonstration and deployment (RDD&D) of clean, low‐carbon technologies of all sorts for decades to come. However, these investments will provide equally unprecedented benefits. The

IEA estimates an internal rate of return on the investment of a bit more than 10% per year from the fuel savings alone. The enormous benefits to political and economic stability, as well as to environmental quality and human well‐being, that we also expect would add immeasurably to this financial return.

 

But is such a revolution really possible? Can societies mobilise the huge amounts of capital needed in time? The good news is that there is already ample evidence that when governments provide a sustained strategic framework for a clean energy future, the private sector invests rapidly in clean technologies. Several countries, within the OECD and outside of it, have already achieved tremendous clean energy deployment, leading the way for others to follow. Many governments have announced targets for shifting their energy systems onto a cleaner, more sustainable path.

 

This report analyses for the first time progress in global clean energy technology deployment against the pathways that are needed to achieve these goals. It provides an overview of technology deployment status, key policy developments and public spending on RDD&D of clean energy technologies.