What Will it Take to See a 95% Renewable-Powered World by 2050?
18 trillion dollars, with the U.S. sporting a third of the bill, according to a report by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC). The groups assert that a drastic shift to renewable energy within the next 40 years is possible with a no-holds-barred approach and some serious owning up by the world’s biggest polluters, i.e. who has two thumbs and loves to waste!? This Guy…the U.S. of A.
Yes, because “We the People” have one of the longest and by far most intensive history of pollution and greenhouse gas emission, we’ll have to pay for a good third of the most important bar tab the world has ever seen, according to Greenpeace. Of the $18 trillion needed to pull it off, the U.S. would be responsible for 36.3 percent of the bill in 2010. That would decrease to 28.9 percent by 2030.
China, which recently surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, would pay only 4.3 percent in 2010, increasing to 14.3 percent in 2030. China pays less because it has a shorter history of industrial development and GHG emission, and is poorer than the United States and Europe.
The nigh unfathomable price tag of $18 trillion is perhaps the biggest issue. It is, according to Reuters, five times the entire U.S. budget for 2011. Yet Greenpeace and EREC have reportedly worked out the details, outlining a direct path to a globe almost entirely powered by renewable resources like wind, geothermal and solar power. They also point out that it would take a cumulative investment of more than $11 trillion just to stay on the path we’re on, in which oil and gas remain our dominant energy sources.
Of course, under the renewable, paradigm subsidies for fossil fuels must stop immediately, and the world must turn wholeheartedly to renewable power. If we do it, says Greenpeace, in 2050 the global energy industry will employ some 12 million people, including 8.5 million in the renewable sector. Under the status-quo scenario in which fossil fuels remain prevalent, only 8.7 million jobs would be created by the energy sector, with only 2.4 million in renewables.
Where most predictions about how fast the world could shift to renewable energy stop at the surface, figuring it’ll never happen, Greenpeace and EREC have delved deep, outlined a plan and presented it to the world. And their timing is no accident, as 185 nations are currently meeting in Bonn, Germany to revive climate talks after the failure of last year’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Source: Reuters
Photo Credit: Cramblit’s Creative Concepts
Posted on June 8th in Solar Research by Dan.
June 8th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
This article claims that the amount needed is “five times the US federal budget for 2011”.
Is this true? How would it compare to WWII’s size of the Federal Deficit when expenditures were much smaller? This is the national comparison, not the world’s. Is Climate Change form the defeat of Nazism and defeat of imperial ambitions of Japan and Italy take in the 21st Century.