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Spending on new oil and gas projects needs to end: IEA

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IEA says there is a narrow path that exists for the world to avoid catastrophic climate change in the future

There is no doubt that the exploitation of our natural resources has contributed greatly to climate change. The International Energy Agency released a report recently saying that there is a ‘viable but narrow’ path available to avoid the catastrophic implications of climate change. In order to stop the damage, the report included a proposal to put an immediate end to new investments in oil, gas, and coal production, along with the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035. It also proposed the installation of renewable energy four times more, compared to last year.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement, “The scale and speed of the efforts demanded by this critical and formidable goal … make this perhaps the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced.” But on a positive note, the report mentioned if there is an investment of $5 trillion per year by 2030, it could provide a much needed major boost to the global economy, by adding millions of jobs in sectors such as clean energy, energy efficiency, and manufacturing, which, in turn, will also increase the global GDP growth by 0.4 percent per year.

In order to achieve this objective, the spending on new oil and gas projects needs to stop immediately, but investment in existing reservoirs could continue, the report mentioned. Additionally, no new coal-powered stations should be built unless they already include the required technology to capture emissions. In order to curb the emissions by cars, the sale of electric vehicles should be increased to 60% globally by 2030. The report also mentioned that the oil demand should be reduced to 24 million barrels a day in 2050 and it should never exceed 100 million barrels, as we saw two years ago.

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