Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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There are. That 2.7 GW was just last year, although every year is the same. A large chunk of new renewable energy is solar and a very large chunk of it is going to China. China's renewable energy is growing 20% per annum and it has more than the rest of the world combined. Europe is probably in second place, growing by 10% per annum. It has about 20% of overall global renewables. The US is in third place and is catching up because of the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA.

Coming back to what I said about not wanting to get into a trade war, if it turns out that it is just Europe, China and America fighting for first place in this industrial revolution, there is a risk the rest of the world will fall behind. That would be a disastrous outcome. I recall that, two or three years ago when I knew I would be taking on a role in some of these climate negotiations, I went to four people I saw as having been the most experienced and involved over the years. They told me that the most important thing in international negotiations on climate is that developing countries are not left behind. If we can sort that, it will be good for Europe, China and America. There is more than enough work for everybody to do and, if we do not address this, we will not meet our climate targets and we will continue to see conflict in the likes of sub-Saharan Africa and west Africa. As the impacts of climate change hit, there will be more wars and more forced migration, which hinders and stresses the countries migrants leave as well as those they come to. Focusing on development and climate is in the interests of the West as well as those of developing countries.

It is highly complicated and complex. I may now spend some time looking at very specific projects and trying to find examples of why things are not working. It often might relate to currency risks. If your revenue stream is in a developing country where the currency might be subject to devaluation but your capital payment costs are in a hard currency because of where you are buying equipment in from, that can create real challenges. As the Deputy has said, the strength of the grid and regulatory and administrative systems are also a factor. That is in no way a criticism of developing countries. We have our own challenges in that regard. However, these systems tend to be particularly weak in such countries.

On the continent of Africa, there are 650 million people who are not on any grid and who have no access to energy. It is very hard to get your first step on the ladder when you are caught in that spiral. During the Covid pandemic, western countries were typically able to provide great economic stimulus to support their countries while developing countries were not able to at all. They were therefore hit very badly by the Covid pandemic. They were then similarly hit by the high fossil fuel prices that came with the war in Ukraine and by the high interest rates that were introduced to dampen the inflation that arose in the western world as a result. There was a triple whammy in developing countries, which has left them in a very difficult place at this time.

The resolution goes back to what I said about transparency and auditing accounting systems so that the rating agencies have a better understanding of what is happening. They have a role in this. To my mind, they do not accurately assess the real rating risk. The World Bank, the IMF and the regional development banks also have responsibilities. They have not traditionally paid sufficient attention to the need for capital investment, particularly in the development of renewable alternatives in developing countries. How they finance such investment and arrange such loans is going to be part of the solution. This process, whereby public finance is put in but that is done to mobilise private finance, is one of the key ways to break this logjam. It is the exact same as what we did in de-risking home loans for retrofitting. In a similar way, if public finance can de-risk a loan for, let us say, the first quarter of the default risk, private finance can be brought in on top of that, bringing the interest rate right down, which is, as Mia Mottley has said, one of the biggest problems. It is not just about countries being indebted. The cost of debt being so high is what really cripples them. It is about a combination of investing in grids, regulatory systems, de-risking blended finance systems, good tracing, accounting and reporting rules and public finance at the scale we are going to need.