With just days to go until Cop28, we are launching a landmark report to highlight the need for massive investment in renewable energy sources rooted in justice. “Power Up for Climate Justice: Financing and Implementing a Global Renewables Target” makes it clear: an agreement to triple renewable energy capacity to over 11,000 gigawatts by 2030 is poised to take center stage at COP28.

This is a big moment for the climate movement, and offers a glimmer of hope to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees as we wrap up what is almost certainly the hottest year the Earth has experienced in 125,000 years.

But such a target will only deliver for climate justice if it is accompanied by a robust energy package that includes finance for the Global South and financial system reform. 

It is also imperative that a target be accompanied by a binding commitment in the COP28 final text to phase out fossil fuels by 2050. Both the scaling up of renewable energy capacity and the phase out of fossil fuels must be anchored with concrete processes and resources for their implementation.

Earlier this year, G20 leaders acknowledged that a yearly investment of $4 trillion by 2030 is required to finance the global energy transition. But across the Global South outside of China, we are confronted with a stark reality: investment in renewable energy has remained more or less flat since the Paris Agreement.

COP28 must underpin the tripling of renewables with tangible political commitments and processes to unlock finance: debt cancellation at scale, $100 billion in concessional finance, and $200 billion in grants yearly.

The good news is, this is all possible. 350.org’s Power Up for Climate Justice report presents a roadmap for unlocking the finance to make a global renewable energy target at COP28 a significant milestone for the climate. 

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