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Global shift to renewables slowed in 2023, policy group states

The worldwide shift to renewables in major energyconsuming sectors slowed in 2023, hindered by regulative gaps, political pressures and a failure to set clear targets, a policy group stated on Wednesday.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war assisted aspirations to move to renewables in the middle of growing issues about energy security, but governments have stopped working to construct on the momentum, an annual evaluation by Paris-based REN21 group stated.

By the end of in 2015, only 13 countries - consisting of the United States, India and China - had executed policies on renewables that cover structures, industry, transport and farming, with only 12.7% of the energy the sectors consume coming from tidy sources, REN21 stated.

Many countries have even backtracked on their ambitions: of 69 countries with renewable resource targets for end-users, only 17 extended them beyond 2024, said REN21, which brings together governments, research study institutions and NGOs to promote the switch to tidy energy.

Governments have actually essentially gone back from their aspirations, and energy-consuming sectors do not have the financial incentives any more, REN21's Executive Director Rana Adib stated.

The report alerted that countries were slow on reforms and the trillions of dollars of subsidies granted to fossil fuels, particularly in market and farming, still hold the energy transition back.

Falling fossil fuel costs in 2023 likewise shaped policymaking, and discuss about the expenses of switching to cleaner energy have heightened, especially as many countries head towards elections, Adib stated.

Decarbonising heavy market remains a major challenge, with hard to abate sectors such as cement and steel arguing that renewables can not produce the heat required to fire their kilns and blast furnaces.

However while the transition of market might show more difficult than transportation, solutions do exist, consisting of using electric arc furnaces to make steel, Adib said.

' Difficult to abate' currently sends the message that these are sectors that are practically difficult to decarbonise, which is not true, she said.

(source: Reuters)