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| Fig. 1: The image above shows the nations that have ratified the Paris Agreement. [7] The United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2018. Key: Light Blue - Parties; Yellow - Signatories; Dark Blue - Parties also covered by European Union ratification; Red - Did not ratify. The difference between being a signatory and a party is a signatory declares their intention to make the treaty legally binding, while a party simply accepts the treaty. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
Questions of the environment have been increasingly present within social perception in recent days. Consequently, the significance of renewable energy sources has become more important in recent days as well. This brief report seeks to look at the future of the renewable energy sector.
Recent statistics relating to renewable energy showed that 2015 had become a turning year for renewable energy production. Global investments into the renewable energy sector neared $ 300 billion. Many energy analysts have increased their prognosis by 13 percent in relation to the growth of the renewable energy sector by the year 2021. [1] The reason behind such a growth seems to be twofold: economic and political.
The economic factor behind such a growth is due to the large-scale increase in investments in new technologies, which causes the costs associated with green energy sources to decrease more quickly than anyone else's prognosis. For instance, in the previous five years, the costs of wind energy dropped by 31 percent with prognosis that the by 2022, the costs will drop by an additional 15 percent. Similarly, the costs of solar energy dropped by 80 percent with a prognosis of an additional drop by 25 percent in 2022. [1] Following this recent trend, there has been an appearance of large solar factories in the United Arab Emirates that are offering solar power at $0.0299 for a kilowatt-hour. [2,3] Such a low value is without government subsidization. Similarly, in Mexico, solar and wind power-producing factories have shown a result within a $0.035 to $0.06 for a kilowatt-hour. [3, 6] Such cost decreasing trends are only expected to grow in the next decade.
The political factor behind this growth in renewable energy sources relates to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, which is an agreement within the UNFCCC, dealing with greenhouse gas emissions reduction and the financing of this process. Approximately 195 UN member states signed this accord, which sought to ensure that the average temperature on earth would not exceed a growth of over two degrees by 2100. [3] As is well known, the energy sector is a one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions on earth, with some sources estimating that it is approximately 40% of all emissions. This number is equivalent to around 700 tons of carbon dioxide emissions every second. With the Paris Agreement, moving into the direction of renewable energy is becoming a political goal. [4,5]
The future of renewable energy is an important question that is becoming a larger issue on a daily basis. There are obvious global trends that are moving towards renewable energy sources; however, a critical question to ask if we are moving quickly enough to account for the environmental damage that we are causing. Only time will tell.
o the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.[1] P. Clark, "The Big Green Bang: How Renewable Energy Became Unstoppable," Financial Times, 18 May 17.
[2] L. Graves, "Dubai Set for World's Cheapest Night-Time Solar Power," The National, 5 Jun 17.
[3] "Paris Agreement," United Nations, 2015.
[4] B. Plumer, "Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rose Last Year. Here Are the Top 5 Reasons," New York Times, 22 Mar 18.
[5] C. Harvey, "CO2 Emissions Reached an All-Time High in 2018," Scientific American, 6 Dec 18.
[6] L. Viscidi and N. Graham, "Can Mexico Run on Clean Energy?" New York Times, 31 Jul 18.
[7] M. Sampathkumar and H. Cockburn, "Syria Signs Paris Climate Agreement Leaving the US as the Only Country in the World Not in It," The Independent, 7 Nov 17
