A North-south Agenda For The Renewables Challenge: Ensuring Sustainable Supply Chains, Equitable Green Development And Transparency Standards

Achieving the COP28 pledge of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 is crucial to tackle the climate crisis. Such a substantial and rapid shift poses challenges that need to be addressed to ensure the equity of the energy transition. Three key challenges emerge. Firstly, minerals used in the renewable value chain are unevenly distributed geographically. This not only presents supply risks but also concentrates environmental and social impacts associated with mining in specific areas, while the majority of extraction benefits accrue elsewhere. Secondly, insufficient financing in the Global South can delay renewable energy deployment, and barriers to entering high-value segments in green value chains may result in an energy transition that disproportionately benefits advanced economies. Lastly, weak governance mechanisms amid large flows of financing, rapid investment scale-up and expectations of high returns in renewable energy projects can pose corruption risks and can result in violations of community rights, which may undermine societal support of the sector’s growth. Thus, to ensure a just tripling of renewable energy capacity, it is crucial to promote sustainable supply chains, provide equitable access to finance and technology, create opportunities for industrial capacity-building, and strengthen transparency, accountability, and anti-corruption policies.