IRENA's Francesco La Camera spotlights next steps for climate action after COP26

The Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) talks exclusively about a green recovery, just transition, and two areas of the world where 'the Paris Agreement is at stake'.

According to La Camera, COP26 “was a success even before it started, because it was pushing countries to raise their ambitions”.

And he says that despite many people feeling that the final agreements fell short of what was hoped, “the outcomes were encouraging and we have to be satisfied”.

What he’s less satisfied with is the progress on a green recovery from COVID-19.

From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first plans to 'build back better' were tabled, La Camera has been vocal about the importance to use the once in a lifetime opportunity to transition to clean energy and including renewables into the recovery plans.

To seize the moment, IRENA published its World Energy Transitions Outlook as well as an agenda for the post-COVID recovery. But was this enough to get the results La Camera pushed for?

"We expect to, finally, make the short-term response to the pandemic coherent with the long-term objective of the Paris Agreement and the medium-term objective of the Sustainable Development Goals", says La Camera.

"Unfortunately we don't see 100% coherence between what we are doing in response to COVID and the long term objective. Still, there is not the push to clean energy that we wish to see.

"Hopefully in 2022, after the COP26 commitments, the action will start... we have to start now."

Elsewhere in our interview, he talks about why a move away from fossil fuels must be a just transition for the workers in those industries, stressing that “the transition need not be painful – it can be a great opportunity”.

He says “the Paris Agreement is at stake in two regions –  Africa and southeast Asia”, yet explains how they both “have the opportunity to leapfrog to a new energy system”.

And he outlines why this “energy system of the future will be mainly renewables and complemented by green hydrogen and sustainable biomass”.

Watch the full interview to learn more about La Camera's view on the importance of job creation, reskilling energy professionals, using the energy transition as a way to reduce inequality and the importance of a diverse energy mix.

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