Screen-Shot-2014-09-22-at-4.58.29-PM.png

Report: Renewables Break into Mainstream Energy Market

Renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies are now a successful mainstream business with investors spending $207 USD billion in the sector last year, according to a report released Monday by Clean Energy Canada.

The report — Tracking the Energy Revolution — also said that carbon-based fuels would remain an important part of the global energy system for decades but added that “for the first time in more than a century, multiple signs suggest that their dominance is beginning to wane.”

Global fossil-fuel power generation investment last year totalled $270 billion, the report said, only $63 billion more than for clean energy investments.

It is clear that falling equipment costs, strong investor interest, and government and business leadership are driving a global clean energy revolution, the 18-page report added.

“When it comes to addressing climate disruption, the countries that succeed on the world stage are those taking action at home,” Merran Smith, director of Clean Energy Canada, said in an accompanying media release.

“We found scores of countries and leading companies — from China to the United States — that are fighting climate disruption by cleaning up their energy systems.”

Smith was critical, however, of the Canadian government for showing a lack of interest in supporting green energy.

“Provincial governments are helping Canada play a growing role in that revolution, despite scant federal support for the sector,” she said.

“Thanks to provincial leadership, Canada is a significant player in the global clean energy market. In 2013, ours was the second-fastest growing clean-energy market in the G20, with a 45 per cent increase in investment to $6.5 billion.”

The report said China, the U.S. and Japan were the top three national investors in low-carbon technologies such as wind and solar power last year, spending $55 billion, $36 billion and $30 billion respectively.

By the end of last year 144 countries had renewable-energy targets, the report said. Uruguay has the top 2020 policy target of 100 per cent of primary or final energy to be sourced from clean and renewable sources in six years. Scotland’s 2020 target is 80 per cent and Norway’s is 68 per cent.

China, the world’s largest polluter, invested more last year in new clean energy power plants than it did in new coal power plants, said the report, released one day before the UN Climate Summit in New York.

Sixty per cent of Fortune 100 firms now have goals for renewable energy sourcing and/or greenhouse gas reductions, the report said, adding 6.5 million people now work in the global renewable energy industry.

In a telephone interview with DeSmog Canada, Smith said the federal government is reluctant to engage the low-carbon revolution because it doesn’t understand how big and how fast the clean energy transition is happening.

“This is where big investment dollars are already, and are going to,” she said. “Canada needs to wake up and quit ignoring this. We can’t put all our eggs in the fossil fuel basket.”

She said that the U.S., the European Union, China and other nations are embracing the clean energy economy because technology costs are plunging, it can clean up the air quality, it can provide national energy security, and there are many good business opportunities.

“We are at the tipping point and this is becoming the new business-as-usual,” she said. “This is real, this is big, this is unstoppable.”

The Vancouver-based Clean Energy Canada is a project of Tides Canada Initiatives Society, a group of charities dedicated to social and environmental issues.

Image Credit: Clean Energy Canada

Threats to our environment are often hidden from public view.
So we embarked on a little experiment at The Narwhal: letting our investigative journalists loose to file as many freedom of information requests as their hearts desired.

In just six months, they filed a whopping 233 requests — and with those, they unearthed a veritable mountain of government documents to share with readers across Canada.

But the reality is this kind of digging takes lots of time and no small amount of money.

As many newsrooms cut staff, The Narwhal has doubled down on hiring reporters to do hard-hitting journalism — and we do it all as an independent, non-profit news organization that doesn’t run any advertising.

Will you join the growing chorus of readers who have stepped up to hold the powerful accountable?
Threats to our environment are often hidden from public view.
So we embarked on a little experiment at The Narwhal: letting our investigative journalists loose to file as many freedom of information requests as their hearts desired.

In just six months, they filed a whopping 233 requests — and with those, they unearthed a veritable mountain of government documents to share with readers across Canada.

But the reality is this kind of digging takes lots of time and no small amount of money.

As many newsrooms cut staff, The Narwhal has doubled down on hiring reporters to do hard-hitting journalism — and we do it all as an independent, non-profit news organization that doesn’t run any advertising.

Will you join the growing chorus of readers who have stepped up to hold the powerful accountable?

‘Heartbreaking’: an overhead view of Coastal GasLink sediment spills into Wet’suwet’en waters, wetlands

Sleydo’ Molly Wickham was composed and quiet as she stared out the window of a helicopter flying over vast stretches of TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink...

Continue reading

Recent Posts

Investigating problems. Exploring solutions
The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for a weekly dose of independent journalism.
Investigating problems. Exploring solutions
The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for a weekly dose of independent journalism.
As The Narwhal turns five, I’m thinking about the momentous outpouring of public generosity — a miracle of sorts — that’s allowed us to prove the critics wrong. More than 6,000 people just like you donate whatever they can afford to make independent, high-stakes journalism about the natural world in Canada free for everyone to read. Help us keep the dream alive for another five years by becoming a member today and we’ll mail you a copy of our beautiful 2023 print magazine. — Carol Linnitt, co-founder
Keep the dream alive.
Join today
As The Narwhal turns five, I’m thinking about the momentous outpouring of public generosity — a miracle of sorts — that’s allowed us to prove the critics wrong. More than 6,000 people just like you donate whatever they can afford to make independent, high-stakes journalism about the natural world in Canada free for everyone to read. Help us keep the dream alive for another five years by becoming a member today and we’ll mail you a copy of our beautiful 2023 print magazine. — Carol Linnitt, co-founder
Keep the dream alive.