Despite ongoing global economic woes, the United Nations Environment Programme has announced that investment in renewables exceeded investment in non-renewable sources of energy in 2009. Encouragingly, China is one of the countries leading the trend:
China surpassed the US in 2009 as the country with the greatest investment in clean energy. China’s wind farm development was the strongest investment feature of the year by far, although there were other areas of strength worldwide in 2009, notably North Sea offshore wind investment and the financing of power storage and electric vehicle technology companies.
Of course, China is still building an appaling number of coal power stations. Those facilities have lifetimes that extend out to 2050 and beyond, which is deeply worrisome given that the world needs to be approaching carbon neutrality by then.
That said, we should be willing to applaud good news when it arises. The scale of ongoing investment in renewables is also a pretty good retort to those who claim that only fossil fuels have what it takes to keep our society running, and that energy generated from wind, sun, and other unlimited sources will never be up to the task.
Germany’s energy transformation
Energiewende
German plans to cut carbon emissions with renewable energy are ambitious, but they are also risky
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The micro-level works almost too well. Schleswig-Holstein plans to generate three times as much renewable energy as it consumes and to export the surplus south and west. Southern states are keen to produce their own renewable power, too. Bavaria talks of self-sufficiency. The states’ windpower targets add up to double the federal government’s goal of 36 gigawatts by 2020.