Data is starting to confirm a surge in energy investment that will also accelerate the transition for energy-using sectors.

SEB’s latest The Green Bond report predicts that 2022 is likely to be the first year when total transition investment exceeds $1tr.

SEB has previously suggested that 2022 could be the year when the world finally breaks a decade of stagnation in renewable energy investment and moves to a Paris-aligned transition path. Data has since started to confirm this development, with global clean energy investment jumping more than 50 per cent to a record $125bn in the fourth quarter of 2021, taking full-year investment to a record $350bn.

“We therefore expect an increase in global clean energy investment of more than 25 per cent in 2022,” commented Thomas Thygesen, head of research, climate & sustainable finance, at SEB. “Thus 2022 is likely to be the first year where total transition investment exceeds $tr, which means it has doubled in just four years. However, if we are to maintain hopes of completing the decarbonisation by 2050, it will have to double again both in the first and the second half of this decade. It would therefore be wrong to say that we are on the pathway to Paris, but we can at least say that we are now – for the first time in a decade – moving in that direction.”

The report also features a sustainable debt market update, showing that the market for sustainable debt grew 114 per cent last year. That compares with an average annual growth rate of 52 per cent between 2014 and 2020 and was the highest growth rate since 2014.

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