22 Mar 2013
Can greener energy make us sustainable?
Climate change is the most important and difficult environmental sustainability issue facing humanity.
More than 81 per cent of the world’s primary energy supply comes from fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas.
According to the International Energy Agency: “With energy-related carbon dioxide representing the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions, the fight against climate change has become a defining factor for energy policy-making – but the implications are daunting. Meeting the emission goals currently pledged by countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would still leave the world some 13.7 billion tonnes of CO2 – or 60% – above the level needed to remain on track with the 2°C goal in 2035. Much additional investment will need to be directed towards lower- CO2 technologies, on supply and end-use sides alike. The benefits that society would reap from these measures, beyond avoided climate impacts, would be of an equal if not larger magnitude than the cost to the energy sector.”
Not only is pollution from fossil fuels a major source of climate change, some of the many pollutants also cause tens of thousands of premature deaths plus a great deal of illness around the world.
Can the world make a shift to green energy in time to head off a climate disaster. Canadian writer Stephen Leahy investigates in an article,
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/02/green-energy-solves-dual-crises-of-poverty-and-climate/ called Green Energy Solves Dual Crises of Poverty and Climate.