Renewable energy: too little, too late, for climate change mitigation?
Full details
| Authors & editors | |
| Publisher | Academia Letters |
| Year of publication | 2021 August |
| Languages | |
| Medium | Digital |
| Edition | 1 |
| Topics | Climate, environment and development > Renewable energy policy and economics |
| Tags | |
| Scope & content | The world needs more renewable energy (RE), if only because, eventually, readily accessible fossil fuels will be depleted. RE sources can also greatly reduce energy-related CO2 emissions, but whether they can be properly called ‘zero carbon’ sources is another matter. At present, fossil fuels (FFs) are still dominate world energy supply: RE only provided 11.2% of all commercial energy in 2019, and nuclear another 4.3%, with the remaining 84.5% provided by FFs. Not even the nuclear industry expects nuclear power to significantly increase its market share over the next few decades. Advocates for RE argue that not only can it rapidly supplant FFs, but also enhance economic growth. Others disagree; this short article attempts to resolve the issue. It does this by envisaging a future world with 100% of energy provided by RE. |