Transition to renewables feasible and realistic according to new report

A new report backed by the United Nations (UN) has revealed that renewables will dominate in the future, and are likely to become cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade.

The “Renewables Global Futures Report: Great debates towards 100 per cent renewable energy” is based on interviews with 114 renowned energy experts from all regions of the world.

Many of the experts featured in the report stated that even large international corporations are increasingly choosing renewable energy products either from utilities or through direct investment in their own generating capacity.

Christine Lins, the Executive Secretary of Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21), said: “[The report] is meant to spur discussion and debate about both the opportunities and challenges of achieving a 100 per cent renewable energy future by mid-century”. 

Lins went on to say: “Wishful thinking won’t get us there; only by fully understanding the challenges and engaging in informed debate about how to overcome them, can governments adopt the right policies and financial incentives to accelerate the pace of deployment”.

The global economy continued to grow for the third consecutive year in 2016, by three per cent, while emissions related to the energy sector remained stagnant – according to the report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

This stagnation is largely the result of growing investment in renewable power, particularly in China and the U.S.

Speaking at a press conference at UN Headquarters on Monday 3 April, Lins said “we actually really see that renewables are, on the one hand making their way into the energy systems of many countries, but also we see that we have come a long way. We have a 20 per cent of the world’s final energy consumption nowadays coming from renewables”.

The REN21 report also detailed that over 70 per cent of the experts expressed that a global transition to 100 per cent renewable energy is both feasible and realistic, with European and Australian experts most strongly supporting this view.

In addition, a similar number expected the cost of renewables will continue to decline – becoming cheaper than fossil fuels within ten years.

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