Renewable energy development to cost $15,000 billion: UN report

According to a UN report, development of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources would need funding to the extent of around $15,000 billion – more than the entire US government debt in order to keep the global greenhouse gas emissions in check.

The report said the nearly  80 per cent of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by the middle of the century – up 13 per cent from 2008 – according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

However, this would require sustained investment at a time when some of the world's wealthiest countries would be struggling with debt difficulties, which the panel acknowledged was challenging.

According to professor Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the IPCC working group that unveiled the report in Abu Dhabi yesterday the substantial increase of renewables was technically and politically very challenging.

Ramon Pichs, another co-chair, said the report, which took over 120 researchers over three years to produce, stressed the need for public policy support to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. He said it showed that it was not the availability of the resource, but the public policies that would either expand or constrain renewable energy development over coming decades.

Even with that the IPCC found that despite the recent global downturn, renewable energy capacity grew in 2009 – by over 30 per cent as regards wind power.