Quri Singh, Deputy Director General of the International Renewable Energy Agency, said that the State of Qatar is an example to follow in the field of transition to renewable energy sources, adding:"We all know that Qatar is one of the largest gas producers in the world, but now it is moving to renewable energy sources. That in itself is something people are watching with great interest".
In her interview with Qatar News Agency (QNA), the Deputy Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency indicated that Qatar is an example for other countries to follow and to see the type of challenges it overcomes. There is a long-term path that the State of Qatar is on. These are all very important things for other countries that want to go down this path.
And she indicated that Qatar has more work to do in this field, especially since the capabilities that it really enjoys allow it to be able to bring more renewable energy sources to the electricity grid, stressing that this trend stems from the political will and long-term thinking of the leadership.
She drew attention to the significant role that Qatar can play, in partnership with the International Renewable Energy Agency, in financing projects in developing countries through the mechanisms owned by the agency. "I think that would be a huge step forward".
On the other hand, Singh mentioned the political momentum that has been generated around renewable energy over the past two years. Almost all major economies, as well as many other middle-income and smaller developing economies, have committed to a net-zero emissions future by 2050-2070, she added. "That political momentum that has accelerated is very important because now we’re not just talking about renewable energy as a provider of green electrons in the grid, but we’re talking about the incremental transformation that’s going to happen across the economy. We are now looking at technologies and ways to transfer energy from fossil fuels to renewables, but we also have a big role to play in energy efficiency.".
She stressed that the international community is called upon to make greater efforts to reduce global warming by raising allocations for renewable energy and increasing it to the level of $4.4 trillion. "I’m going to give just one number to understand how much more work we need to do as an international community. We were all very happy when we heard that global investment in energy transformation technologies has now reached $1.3 trillion. However, our projections at the agency are that we need to quadruple that, which means we need to increase annual investments in energy conversion technologies to approximately $4.4 trillion.".
The Deputy Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency stated that despite the significant decrease in the cost of renewable energy, there are still a very large number of people, about 500 million, who lack access to energy, saying "We really believe that the solutions we have in the field of renewable energy can be supportive of saving energy, but the problem remains in providing financing. About 15 percent of total financing, but when we go deeper into LDCs, investments are probably in decimal points.".
Concluding her interview with Qatar News Agency (QNA), the Deputy Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency called on the least developed countries to clarify their policies related to energy transition and build their capabilities in the field of renewable energy, especially since 70 percent of the funding is provided by the private sector, which means that governments still have a role to play. Big play to save the remaining 30-35 percent, because that can stimulate more money coming from the private sector. But without the enabling policies and without the right kind of regulations to support bringing in that capital, financing will remain a challenge. It is also good to know that most of the least developed countries have a very high degree of risk. Therefore, capital does not flow very easily and represents a political risk because of the risks in the country, and unless there are mechanisms developed to mitigate those risks, we will not find capital flows heading towards the least developed countries.
