By Business India Editorial

The European Commission has unveiled one of the centrepieces of its energy transition strategy in an attempt to ensure the EU can compete with the US and China in making clean tech products and accessing raw materials. 

The Commission says global investment in the energy transition is set to triple by 2030 from $1 trillion last year. "The bottom line is that we want to be leaders in the green industries of the future," Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said.

The EU's executive branch has set targets for the region to mine 10 per cent of the critical raw materials it consumes — including lithium and, for the first time, copper and nickel — with recycling adding a further 15 per cent. It also aims to increase processing to 40 per cent of its needs by 2030.

The EU has also set a target for 2030 of producing at least 40 per cent of the products it needs for net-zero technologies, such as solar power or fuel cells, partly by streamlining the granting of permits for green projects. The bloc has also announced a goal for carbon capture of 50 million tonnes by 2030.

Meanwhile, East Asia is on track to remain the world's top wind power production region thanks to a project development pipeline that will expand its capacity by 65 per cent by the end of 2030, according to data from Global Energy Monitor (GEM). Wind is the largest and fastest-growing source of renewable power globally, and is expanding at a record pace in every major economy.

Wind power generated roughly 7.8 per cent of the world's electricity in 2022, but it must expand by enough to produce 21 per cent of global electricity by 2030 in order to put the world on track to hit net-zero emissions goals. The predicted rapid pace of wind power expansion means the goal of having it generate over 20 per cent of global electricity by 2030 is potentially achievable.

China will remain the largest wind producer and top wind capacity developer, but South Korea, Japan and Taiwan will all post faster growth rates than China through to 2030, according to GEM. Together, these East Asian countries are set to make up 36.2 per cent of world wind capacity by 2030, GEM data show.

Europe will be the second-largest wind power developer over the remainder of this decade, boosting capacity by 68 per cent from current levels. And the United States is set to cement its position as the second-largest wind producer overall thanks to a 53 per cent increase in capacity by 2030. Brazil looks set to more than treble its current wind capacity and jump to third in the global rankings, from seventh now.