EMERGING ECONOMIES TAKE LEAD ON GOING GREEN, BUT INVESTMENT NEEDED



solar power plant in Gujarat

A 600MW solar power farm in Charanka, Gujarat, India.
Emerging economies are increasingly taking the lead in shifting the world onto a cleaner development path, a senior World Bank official said, pointing to the role of China and India in pushing down the cost of producing solar power.
In India, for example, recent auctions to construct and run solar plants have seen prices for solar energy drop as low as for coal-fired power, tilting the economics of the electricity market towards renewables.
John Roome, senior director for climate change at the World Bank, said India had evolved from a decade ago when it was seen as part of the problem, insisting on its people’s right to develop above all else. In the last two years it has become a leader on clean energy and climate action, he said.
“They see the co-benefits between dealing with congestion, air pollution and other development needs, and they see the falling costs of the technology, and they see the opportunity for getting ahead of the curve to create new jobs in developing an electric vehicle industry, an air-conditioner industry, a battery industry,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on the sidelines of a conference in Barcelona.
But India and other big developing countries cannot make the transition alone, he added.
For example, February’s Indian solar power auction in Madhya Pradesh - where the cost of solar fell to a level equal with fossil fuels for the first time - was aided by World Bank help to acquire the land for a solar plant to be constructed.
Major improvements in energy efficiency, alongside new technologies, can enable poorer countries to grow in a green way, Roome noted, “but it’s going to take very concerted work between the policies, the incentives, the financing (and) focusing on developing the markets”.
He and other experts at the Innovate4Climate conference pointed to trillions of dollars now sitting in low-yielding investments or cash, looking for higher returns - much of which could be channelled into making economies greener and more resilient.
A study released last November by the International Finance Corporation showed the Paris Agreement on climate change, adopted in 2015, helped open up nearly $23 trillion in opportunities for climate-smart investments in emerging markets through to 2030. 
SOURCE: www.eco-business.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CLIMATE CHANGE: U.S. CLIMATE POLICY LEADERS RELEASE AMAZON FOREST PROTECTION PLAN

Image
A bipartisan group of former U.S. cabinet officials and chief climate negotiators has come together to build support for the Biden-Harris campaign pledge to protect the Amazon rainforests.  The group has offered concrete policy  recommendations  to Congress and Presidential Special Envoy John Kerry, to whom the task of delivering on this promise will fall. The Amazon rainforest The  Climate Principals  include three former cabinet officials and four former State Department chief climate negotiators. Collectively, the group’s members have led U.S. climate diplomacy for all Presidential  administrations  from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2015 Paris Agreement. This is the first time that such a diverse and  distinguished  bipartisan group has come together to offer concrete international climate policy recommendations for any particular geographic region or economic sector. The Principals include Bruce Babbitt, former Governor of A...
Read more

CLIMATE CCHANGE: PAKISTAN LAUNCHES FIRST FOREST MONITORING SYSTEM TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE

Image
  System will help improve conservation and sustainable management of forests The Billion Tree Afforestation Project aims to slow down the effects of global warming in Pakistan. Image Credit: Billion Tree Tsunami Afforestation Project Islamabad: Pakistan has launched its first ever national forest monitoring system to curb illegal deforestation and degradation of land and to mitigate the effects of climate change. The forest monitoring system through satellite data would help the country improve “conservation, sustainable management of forests, enhancement of forest carbon stocks and monitor changes in the forest land use and detect deforestation land degradation activities,” said Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Climate Change, Malik Amin Aslam. Pakistan loses forests over 27,000 hectares annually which is not only a massive environmental issue but also a major public health crisis. “There has been large-scale deforestation and land degradation in the country over last severa...
Read more

COP 23 TO UNVEIL INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO MEASUREMENT, REPORTING AND VERIFICATION (MRV)

Image
COP 23 Side-event to showcase innovative approaches to Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) Thursday 9 th  November, 2017 The event  will showcase innovative approaches endorsed by the European Union (EU) to enhance Measuring (and monitoring), Reporting and Verification (MRV) capacity and their engagement in the transparency framework under the Paris Agreement. The side event will provide an overview of three specific projects, emphasizing new solutions which can be accessed and potentially replicated in other contexts: two major EU-funded projects, the  ClimaSouth project  and the Regional implementation of Paris Agreement project (RIPAP), and Information Matters, a project supported by Germany and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). source: europa.eu
Read more