By Nigina Mirbabaeva

The Board of Directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has approved a new Energy Sector Strategy, setting out the Bank’s strategic directions in this area until 2028.

The Energy Sector Strategy 2024-28 prioritises the urgent need to accelerate the decarbonisation of energy through scaling up renewables, enhancing grids and storage, promoting zero-carbon fuels and phasing out unabated fossil fuels. The strategy also emphasises the need to deliver resilient, efficient and inclusive energy systems that are adapted to climate change, increase energy efficiency and promote an inclusive and just transition.

The Bank will actively support the phasing out of unabated fossil fuels. In keeping with the EBRD’s commitment to aligning its activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement, the strategy signals that the Bank is limiting its involvement in the fossil-fuel sector to increasingly rare instances.

The strategy recognises that this transition presents major challenges for many EBRD economies, particularly those with high energy and carbon intensities. The scale of the investment required to achieve the global net-zero target is among these challenges. For the EBRD regions alone, an estimated investment of US$ 180 billion per year will be needed from now until 2030, of which US$ 130 billion per year will be required in the power sector alone.

EBRD Managing Director for Sustainable Infrastructure, Nandita Parshad said: “Addressing the climate crisis equires an unprecedented transformation of our energy systems, and this transformation needs to be taking place now and at a scale. A key pillar of this transformation is the scaling-up of renewable energy investments by several multiples. This is the central focus of our new strategy – to grow renewable energy from megawatts to gigawatts and promote cleaner, smarter and more resilient energy systems that deliver economic and social development in the EBRD regions.”