Is replacing coal with renewables too expensive? No, it’s the opposite, explain Tobias Adrian at the International Monetary Fund, Patrick Bolton at Imperial College London and Alissa Kleinnijenhuis at the Oxford Martin School who summarise their paper. When the social benefits are added, the net gain globally is around $78tn under a conservative estimate. That’s equal to 1.2% of current world GDP every year until 2100 – these are real economic … [Read more...]
Record Renewables additions for 2021 and 2022 despite supply bottlenecks prove Solar & Wind’s resilience
Despite – or perhaps because of – global market and political turmoil, renewable power is set to break another record in 2022. That’s after 2021 also saw record new capacity from solar, wind and other renewables worldwide. It’s mainly driven by solar PV in China and Europe as governments around the world take advantage of renewables’ energy security and climate benefits, according to the IEA’s latest Renewable Energy Market Update. 295GW of new … [Read more...]
Eradicate global poverty, meet climate goals, by avoiding rich-world energy consumption patterns
There is concern that eradicating poverty in the global south means their growing wealth and energy consumption will make our climate targets too hard to meet. Here, Jarmo Kikstra and Narasimha Rao, writing for Carbon Brief, explain that the energy needed to eradicate poverty is compatible with climate goals, provided that policymakers focus on delivering decent living standards, and not copying the affluence and habits of rich countries. Most … [Read more...]
