Distributed generation

• [New] With China recently committing to carbon neutrality by 2060 and Joe Biden promising to return the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change, the decarbonisation push is becoming both global and synchronised.
• [New] The Black Country is one of seven strategic industrial clusters across the UK being supported by BEIS and Innovate UK to decarbonise by 2040.
• [New] To achieve net zero by 2045 Scotland needs to decarbonise industry, transport, heat and power.
• [New] The CCC has been clear that, in order to achieve net zero by 2050, GGRs will be necessary to balance residual emissions from some of the most difficult to decarbonise sectors, such as parts of the agriculture and aviation sectors.
• [New] The Welsh Government is committed to ambitious targets to achieve net zero emissions from Welsh homes by 2050 - something that will require significant investment in order to decarbonise the electricity and heat supply to them.
• There is no doubt that 2021 will bring even more growth to the Biofuels sector, especially as governments around the world are taking bolder steps to promote the decarbonisation of the Transport sector.
• The pathway to decarbonisation in Europe will require a dramatic increase in variable renewable energy (VRE) production in the coming years.
• President-elect Biden will take the US back into the Paris agreement in 2021, which will be material in terms of aligning all major economies globally towards reducing carbon emissions significantly over the next 30 years and beyond.
• The UK would bring forward its ban on the sale of new fossil fuel vehicles by a decade to 2030 to hasten the decarbonisation of its transport sector.
• All New Lorries Must Be Emissions-Free In The 2030s If The UK Is To Decarbonize By 2050 - Growing demand for freight transport mean that improving the efficiency of lorries will not be enough to achieve the climate targets, a study by the NGO Transport & Environment shows.
• Offshore renewable energy is one of the most promising routes to increase future power generation in the coming years in a way that meets Europe's decarbonisation objectives and expected rise in electricity demand in an affordable manner.
• From about USD 300 billion globally in recent years, annual investments in renewables must triple to USD 800 billion by 2050 to fulfil key global decarbonization and climate goals.
• Germany's lower house recently approved a tax on greenhouse gas emissions, to begin in 2021, which will increase the prices of heating oil, car fuels, and natural gas.
• The rapid decarbonisation has been driven by the unexpectedly fast drop in the cost of renewable energy, which in 2020 collapsed to levels that just six years ago the International Energy Agency did not predict it would reach until 2050.
• The UK's Transport Decarbonisation Plan, to be published later in 2020, will detail how the UK plans to stimulate the EV charging infrastructure market, as well as further strategies to support the transition to EVs.
• Zero-emission ships are needed to deliver on the more ambitious goal of net zero emissions by 2050 climate scientists recommend for all parts of the global economy.
• Japan will in 2020 provide roughly $11.8 billion in public and private climate finance to support global decarbonization and contribute up to $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund for helping developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
• The potential for additional renewable electricity in the EU28 countries comfortably exceeds the projected demand to decarbonise transport and the electricity grid by 2050.
• Making use of renewable electricity that would otherwise have been curtailed is likely to have only a small role in producing the hydrogen and electrofuels needed to decarbonise Europe's transport sector to 2050.
• There will be a shift towards public charging infrastructure in the EV charging infrastructure market over the coming decade as more middle or lower income households without home charging options adopt EVs.
• Floating wind energy will play an important role in decarbonizing the global energy system, contributing 2% of the world's power supply by 2050, but more comprehensive industry standards and risk management is required for the technology to scale.
• The UK Government has set in law that the UK needs to be net zero by 2050, but the South Wales Industrial Cluster has ambitions to do so earlier, by 2040, in support of several points within the 10 Point Plan and the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge.
• The world pledged to end extreme poverty, ensure universal health care, and provide education for all children by 2030; countries would decarbonize the world's energy system to head off the dire risks of human-induced climate change.

Last updated: 10 January 2021