World requires $5 trillion by 2030 to fight climate crisis

Climate finance needs to rise sharply to $5 trillion a year globally by 2030 to fund measures to fight the climate crisis.

Researchers have warned on Thursday that transformation across economies is too slow to meet international temperature goals.

From transport to agriculture and electricity, progress is lagging in all sectors on reducing planet-heating emissions at the pace required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid its worst effects, a study by five green groups found.

The study called for a significant ramping up of investments to fight climate change, especially for developing countries.

Globally, it said finance must rise eightfold to meet the estimated $5 trillion needed annually for climate action by 2030 – or an average increase of $436 billion a year this decade.

One of the 40 indicators it assessed are in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of reining in average temperature rise to "well below" 2C, and ideally 1.5C, above preindustrial times.

Of the indicators, 25 were judged to be "well off track" or "off track", including using less dirty coal to generate power and boosting climate finance.

READ MORE: UN chief: Earth on 'catastrophic' path to 2.7 degrees of heating

Renewables on the rise

But the study did note some bright spots, such as wider adoption of wind and solar energy, and more electric vehicles on the road.

"Although there are some encouraging signs of progress in a few sectors, overall global climate mitigation efforts are still falling woefully short," said Sophie Boehm, one of the authors.

Boehm, from the World Resources Institute, a US-based think-tank that worked on the study, said the findings should provide a "clear-eyed view" of the effort needed as governments head to the UN COP26 climate summit that kicks off on Sunday.

"We're going to need world leaders at COP26 and beyond to ramp up that (climate) ambition and action immediately," Boehm told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

READ MORE: What’s at stake for the Global South: COP26 jargon explained

Inadequate funding

A separate annual assessment released this month by analysis group Climate Policy Initiative showed global climate finance averaged $632 billion in 2019 and 2020, a 10 percent rise from 2017-2018, but the rate of increase slowed from earlier years.

"Climate finance is trending upward, but not nearly at the speed required," said Surabi Menon, vice president of global intelligence at the US-based ClimateWorks Foundation.

"It's imperative to support these (developing) countries with the financial and technological resources they need in order to equitably address climate change on a global scale," the climate scientist added.

The study should serve as a "wake up call" that action must be taken before it is too late, said Kelly Levin, one of the authors and science chief at the multi -billion-dollar Bezos Earth Fund, started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.