SOURCE: FREEPIK
The United Nations (UN) announced last Saturday that renewable energy is the way forward if we want to prevent a climate catastrophe on Earth. They presented a Five Point Energy Plan achieve the majority of energy coming from renewable sources, achieving a just transition.
António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization (UN), said the following regarding this situation 13th session of the Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) held last weekend in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates):
Only renewables can secure our future, bridge the energy access gap, stabilize prices and ensure energy security.Antonio Guterres
Regarding the goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, he said that:
With current policies, we are heading for 2.8 degrees of global warming by the end of the century. The consequences will be devastating. Various parts of our planet will be uninhabitable. And for many, it’s a death sentence.Antonio Guterres
Renewable energies are on the right track, as they aspire to become largest source of electricity generation on our planet from the year 2050, surpassing coal. The Renewables 2022 report predicts a major shift in the planet’s electricity mix as we find ourselves in a time of geopolitical tensions and significant energy volatility.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) comments the following regarding this situation:
The first real global energy crisis, triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, triggered an unprecedented boost for renewable energy. Renewables will become the world’s largest source of electricity generation by early 2025, overtaking coal.International Energy Agency
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Renewable energies, present and future
The use of renewable energies, energy of the future but also of the present, implies enormous benefits for the planet in its fight against the climate emergency.
The benefits that renewable energies bring us are:
- They have a positive impact on the environment, as they do not pollute the environment.
- They reduce dependence on fossil fuels such as coal or oil, which release CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, reducing our carbon footprint.
- They reduce the cost of producing electricity, since producing clean energy becomes cheaper.
- They promote sustainability, helping to advance the much-needed energy transition process to combat climate change.
- The sun, the wind, the heat of the earth and the water (the latter perhaps a little less) will always be there, given that they are inexhaustible sources of energy on our planet, or at least for a sufficiently indefinite time that we do not have to worry for hundreds of years if all goes well.
Currently, renewable energies represent almost 30% of the world’s electricity. According to António Guterres, this percentage should double to exceed 60% in 2030 and 90% in 2050.
Five Point Energy Plan
António Guterres indicated that the roadmap to follow, the so-called Five Point Energy Plan, is in charge of carrying out an energy transition. The five points to achieve the objectives of this plan are:
- Remove barriers to intellectual property so that key renewable technologies are treated as global public goods.
- Countries need to diversify and increase access to raw material supply chains and components for renewable technologies, without degrading the environment.
- The political leaders of the countries must reduce bureaucracyaccelerating the approval of sustainable projects around the world and modernizing electricity networks.
- The energy subsidies are essential to switch from fossil fuels to clean and sustainable energy.
- The public and private investments in renewable energy are expected to triple until it hits at least four trillion dollars a year.
Investment in renewable energies
The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to limit the increase in the global temperature of the planet to 1.5 ºC, in addition to including commitments by all countries to reduce their emissions and to work together to limit the impacts of climate change.
A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) pointed out early last year that investment in clean energy could top $2 trillion a year by 2030, an increase of more than 50% compared to today. .
Sources: Ambientum Writing, International Energy Agency, UN