The energy transition will require a considerable increase in investment: is it feasible and can it be financed?

To achieve an energy transition that is consistent with international climate agreements, global renewable electricity generation would have to be increased from 1,400 to at least 8,000 GW - and probably more - in 30 years, from 2020 to 2050. The investments required over this 30-year period can be estimated at USD 8,000 billion, for solar and wind energy (onshore and offshore) alone. To this must be added investments in electricity storage (hydrogen, perhaps USD 4,000 billion), carbon capture (perhaps USD 1,000 billion), and so on. Let us assume that the world will have to invest at least USD 13,000 billion in the energy transition from 2020 to 2050, i.e. USD 430 billion in additional investments each year. Will this be feasible? When we look at the global savings-investment equilibrium, we see that for the next 30 years this amounts to an increase of 0.6 percentage point of GDP per year in the global investment rate, which currently is 26% of GDP, which seems feasible. Of course, this only covers the shift from fossil to renewable energies, not other elements of the energy transition: building insulation in particular .