The Environment Correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
According to a new study by researchers at Oxford University, renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn by the year 2020.
The report says that predictions that moving quickly towards cleaner energy sources was too optimistic.
The researchers say that going green now makes sense because of the falling cost of renewable energy.
Professor Doyne Farmer from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School said that even if you are a climate denier, you should be on board with what they are advocating.
He said that the green energy transition would save us money.
The report uses historic price data for renewables and fossil fuels to model how they'll change in the future.
Fossil fuels have been tracked for more than 100 years and show that the price has not changed much.
There is less data because renewables have been around for a long time. The cost of solar and wind power has fallen at a rapid rate due to continual improvements in technology.
The report believes that the price of renewable energy will fall because of the large investment and economies of scale of other technologies.
The lead author of the report says that scaling-up key green technologies will continue to drive their costs down, and the faster we go, the more we will save.
The cheapest option for new power projects is wind and solar, but questions remain over how to best store power and balance the grid when the weather gets cold.
The cost of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by the year 2050 was stated in a letter written by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. According to this report, the likely costs have been underestimated.
The cost of keeping global temperatures from rising under 2 degrees was too optimistic according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change. The transition to renewable energy was expected to be a net economic benefit.
You can follow him on social media.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
