Climate Spending Falls, Threatening 2-Degree Target – Bloomberg.
Spending on carbon-reduction and climate-protection measures by governments and companies fell for a second year, threatening the United Nations’ goal to cap global warming at safe levels, according to a research report.
World expenditures on renewables, energy efficiency and measures that protect against the effects of climate change slid $28 billion, or 8 percent, to about $331 billion in 2013, according to the report published today by the Climate Policy Initiative, a San Francisco-based analysis company.
Governments are trying to devise a new global agreement by the end of next year that would cap the increase in the world’s temperature since the Industrial Revolution to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). To achieve that, annual spending on measures like wind and solar power needs to more than double to $790 billion by 2020, the International Energy Agency says.
“Global investments in a cleaner, more resilient economy are decreasing and the gap between finance needed and actually delivered is growing,” Barbara Buchner, a senior director of Climate Policy Initiative and lead author of the study, said in an e-mailed statement. “Climate finance is a key ingredient to bring the world on a 2-degree Celsius pathway.”
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