Lord Adair Turner, Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission and a former Chair of the Financial Conduct Authority, has warned that global decarbonisation efforts risk being undermined by rising geopolitical fragmentation and protectionist pressures, even as technological progress accelerates at an unprecedented pace.
Speaking at the Schneider Electric Innovation Summit in Copenhagen today, Turner said that while political cooperation on climate policy remains fraught, collaboration at the level of global supply chains is now “absolutely critical”.
He noted that much of the world’s manufacturing base for clean-energy hardware — from solar panels to wind turbines and batteries — remains heavily concentrated in China, making cross-border cooperation essential despite rising tensions between Beijing and the West.
“The driver will not just be ideology or doing the right thing,” Turner said. “It’s going to be commercial incentives that drive cooperation at the supply-chain level.”
Turner, who led the CBI before serving as Britain’s top financial regulator during the 2008 financial crisis, drew parallels between the financial system’s vulnerabilities then and the energy system’s dependencies now. Just as excessive concentration of risk precipitated the crash, he argued, an over-reliance on national energy self-sufficiency could stall the clean-energy transition.
He cited the global shipping industry’s recent attempt to introduce a carbon levy on marine fuels as a sign of progress in international coordination. But that effort was blocked by countries including the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia — an “interesting axis”, as Turner dryly put it — underlining the fragility of multilateral climate action.
Despite the political headwinds, Turner expressed optimism about the pace of technological advance. The cost of solar photovoltaic panels, he said, has fallen by 99.9% over the past five decades, while battery prices are down roughly 95% in the past decade. Combined with rapid innovation in wind turbines, electrolyser technology, and electric vehicles, these developments mean “we now have the technologies that can take us a long way towards a zero-carbon economy.”
Artificial intelligence, he added, would play a double-edged role in the transition. On one hand, AI could transform grid management and demand-side flexibility, allowing electricity systems to operate more efficiently. On the other, its own soaring electricity needs — potentially reaching up to 5,000 terawatt-hours by 2050 — could place significant strain on global energy supply.
Still, Turner noted, AI’s overall share of global electricity use is likely to remain small relative to other drivers such as air-conditioning demand. The challenge, he said, lies in ensuring that the new digital economy operates with vastly improved energy efficiency.
For all the difficulties, Turner remains convinced that technology offers a path forward. “The cheapest way to produce a kilowatt-hour is now solar or wind,” he said. “The real question is what to do when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine — and increasingly, we have the technologies to solve that.”
