Renewable energy can meet all human needs, suggests report
LONDON, England, 2004-06-23 (Refocus Weekly)
Even a small shift of support away from fossil fuels to renewables could save millions of lives and help avert global warming, according to the British think-tank New Economics Foundation.
“The combined spiralling costs of climate change and dwindling supplies of
oil mean that, without a major shift to renewable energy, internationally-agreed
targets to reduce poverty will not be met and people in all countries will
suffer a progress-reversing energy shock,” says ‘The Price of Power.’
Development strategies that meet growing demand for energy from fossil fuels are
“self-defeating and doomed to failure,” with the cost of natural disasters
linked to global warming reaching $60 billion a year.
“Around the world, control of fossil fuels is linked to corruption and
violence,” says Andrew Simms of nef. “Burning them causes climate change
which, in turn, puts an impossible obstacle in the way of ending poverty.”
“Reshaping our energy supply holds the secret to ending poverty and preventing
global warming,” he adds. “Small-scale renewables remain the best answer for
communities and the environment. The growing threat to the conventional energy
supply means any long-term efforts to improve the human condition will have to
be linked to renewable energy sources.”
Lack of access to reliable clean energy is a major barrier to improving
well-being of 1.6 billion people around the world who lack access to
electricity, and a fast-approaching global energy and climate crisis threatens
to reverse human development, it explains. Renewables currently contribute 13%
of global energy, but have the technical potential to increase by 120 times.
All of non-electrified sub-Saharan Africa could be provided with solar energy
for less than 70% of what OECD countries spend on subsidizing fossil fuel
sources each year, it adds, while one year’s worth of World Bank spending on
fossil fuel projects could provide ten million people in Africa with electricity
if the money were re-directed to small-scale solar installations.
Subsidies to coal, oil and natural gas are “conservatively” $235 billion per
year and “directly distort the global economy and hold back the development of
renewables,” it adds. “The energy industry is further skewed by the fact
that the direct costs of damage by carbon emission - estimated by the British
government at between £50 and £200 per tonne - are not factored into the price
of fossil fuels.”
The capital requirements of renewables can be lower than conventional and
centralized investments, and the report calls for official adoption of key
targets for the uptake of renewable energy. Among the recommendations are to
implement the G8’s target of serving at least one billion people around the
world with renewables by 2010, phase out government subsidies for fossil fuels
and nuclear energy, reform international financial institutions and export
credit agencies to “dramatically increase” funding for renewables in
developing countries, phase out World Bank subsidies to fossil fuel projects by
2008, and increase the target for clean energy to two billion people over the
next ten years.
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