Download an overview - A Newer World

The global renewable energy revolution is upon us. There are many exciting
developments in the sector including initiatives to decentralize energy production. These
developments are critical for global efforts to decarbonize and also provide a way to provide
clean energy services to the hundreds of millions who are in "energy poverty."
So what’s driving this global momentum? For one thing, climate change. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its Fifth Assessment Report on climate
science this past September. Among the headline statements were that “Continued emissions of
greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate
system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse
gas emissions.”
The IPCC came out with its Fifth Assessment Report on “Impacts, Adaptation, and
Vulnerability” this week. The co-chair of the IPCC working group, Chris Field, said: “With
high levels of warming that result from continued growth in greenhouse gas emissions, risks will
be challenging to manage, and even serious, sustained investments in adaptation will face limits.
The report concludes that people, societies, and ecosystems are vulnerable around the world, but
with different vulnerability in different places. Climate change often interacts with other stresses
to increase risk.” Yet another call to arms. US Secretary of State John Kerry put it succinctly:
“The costs of inaction are catastrophic.”
What else is driving the push to renewables? Air Pollution: One recent international
study concluded that people in Northern China live five and a half fewer years than those in the
rest of China. In 2010, particulate matter in the air of 180 Indian cities was six times higher than
World Health Organization standards. India recently ranked 174th out of 178 countries on air
pollution. We still suffer in the more developed economies. In Paris last month the air was
worse than Beijing’s. In the US, some top economists concluded a few years ago that coal-fired
power plants have “gross external damages” (mainly health impacts from air pollution) larger
than their value added – as much as 5.6 times value added.
Geopolitics and energy security: The Europeans have known for quite some time that
they didn’t want to be dependent on Russian gas. Does anyone believe that recent events haven’t
further concentrated minds in the EU 28?
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There are many colors and textures in the clean tech canvas:
renewable energy – various solar technologies, photovoltaic chief among them, plus
wind turbines, various geothermal technologies, biomass, hydropower, and marine
energy – coming on very strong;
energy efficiency and conservation – what Amory Lovins called negawatts 25 years
ago;
green building and smart cities;
combined heat and power (or cogeneration) and other distributed generation (or
decentralized energy) solutions;
the smart grid;
radical lightweighting of vehicles and electrification of surface transportation,
plus better and more mass transit.
There are more. Some of which we’ll hear about tonight. We also have a constantly
growing body of policy to support the build-out of these clean tech initiatives and a burgeoning
acceptance of their economic viability, and thus a surge in financing, private and public.