For decades, governments and industry have promised that markets and private investors will deliver the energy transition needed to reach net zero. This promise has not materialised. The global energy system remains highly dependent upon fossil fuels and private investment in renewables has not gathered pace at anything like the rate required.
It is time to face the facts: decarbonisation will fail without public ownership of the energy system. This is something global leaders – many of whom are this week gathered at the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Climate and Energy Summit in Madrid – must realise.
Yet just last month the UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, U-turned on several net-zero policies. Governments such as Sunak’s, and others including the IEA, claim private investors and liberalised markets are seamlessly paving the way to a clean energy future. The role of government, they say, is to protect investors and facilitate the flow of capital because, in the right market environment, the transition will take off irresistibly, rendering fossil fuels a thing of the past.
