Brussels 26/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - Potentially, renewable energy sources could provide 70% of the world's electricity and 65% of the heat supply by 2050, states the report entitled “Energy Revolution: a sustainable World Energy Outlook” published on 25 January by the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) and Greenpeace International.
Released a fortnight after the European Commission's presentation of the Energy for Europe strategy, the report establishes a strategy for achieving a global-scale sustainable energy model and provides a detailed plan on ways to reduce global CO2 emissions by almost 50% over the next 43 years, while ensuring energy supply security at an affordable price and - which is essential - maintaining constant global economic development, stress EREC and Greenpeace. The plan takes into account regions of rapid economic growth such as China, India and Africa, and places emphasis on the economic advantages of the energy revolution scenario, to conclude that renewable energies will be the backbone of the world economy, not just in OECD countries but also in the emerging countries such as China and India, for example.
The mechanisms on which the scenario is based are:
“The energy revolution scenario comes as the world is crying out for a roadmap for tackling the dilemma of how to provide the power we all need, without fuelling climate change”, comments Sven Tesk, an expert from Greenpeace International. “We have shown that the world can have safe, robust renewable energy, that we can achieve the efficiencies needed and we can do all this whilst enjoying global economic growth and phasing out damaging and dangerous sources such as coal and nuclear. Renewable energies are competitive, if governments phase out subsidies for fossil and nuclear fuels and introduce the polluter-pays principle. We urge politicians to ban those subsidies by 2010”.
The report nonetheless also highlights the short time window for making the key decisions in energy infrastructure, which will have to be made by governments, investment institutions and utility companies. Within the next decade, many of the existing power plants in the OECD countries will come to the end of their technical lifetime and will need to be replaced, whilst developing countries such as China, India and Brazil are rapidly building up new energy infrastructure to service their growing economies.
“The global market for renewable energy can grow at a double digit rate till 2050, and achieve the size of today's fossil fuel industry. Wind and solar markets, already worth US$38 billion, are doubling in size every three years”, said Arthouros Zervos, EREC President, who therefore calls on decision makers around the world to make this vision a reality. He went on to add: “The political choices of the coming years will determine the world's environmental and economic situation for many decades to come. Renewable energy can and will have to play a leading role in the world's energy future. There is no technical but a political barrier to making this shift”.
The report was commissioned by Greenpeace and EREC from the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). It may be consulted on line at the following addresses: http://www.greenpeace.or/energyrevolution and http://www.energyblueprint.info (an)