Wind Energy
Climate Change
Climate Change the New Green Deal
We are living in a unique time when global political leaders, financiers and environmental advocates are coming together to fight climate change. We have past the point of denial saying that climate change does not exist to now debating openly the solutions and the way to reduce global pollution.
Climate change is now recognised as currently the single biggest environmental threat facing the planet. In the past 100 years, it has been agreed that the world's average surface temperature has warmed by 0.74°C and is expected to continue to warm due to the further increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.
Although the expected warming is on such a small scale, in global historic terms, it is potentially going to be much greater than any of the climatic changes experienced during the past 10,000 years.
Scientists say the only realistic way at present is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. How to do that - and where - is a political hot potato. To fight climate change, reduce carbon emissions and pollution we need to change the way society approaches commerce, transport and the way we live our lives. We will need to move from the phase of conspicuous consumption and reliance on never ending cheap, dirty energy supplies. We need a root and branch rethink in the value that we put on our natural resources, energy supply and the waste we create.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that we already have most of the technology we need to bring down emissions significantly. These include renewable energy sources such as wind farms, geothermal and solar panels, as well as more efficient cars and power stations.
Lord Stern, who advised the UK government about the economic threat posed by global warming points out, "We know that greenhouse gases are rising. And we know the [global] temperature is rising. We can look back through ice-core data and see over 800,000 years, relationships between carbon dioxide and the temperature of the world,"
"So those people who deny the importance of climate change are just wasting their time. They're also being diversionary because if we don't act the risks are enormous."
The election of Barack Obama is very significant in the climate change debate. He ran his campaign for the White House with climate change being one of the central pillars of his campaign plan. Globally politicians of all persuasions are now able to speak fluently about what they will do to fight climate change.
Over the last twelve months the global fight against climate change has reached new levels with the US, China and EU all announcing variations of green fiscal stimulus packages. Trade Unions who are interested in job creation are now sitting beside financiers who see the new green economy and green energy companies as opportunities for profit.
The rapid development of this ‘green new deal' is a way of solving the fall out to the global economy from the credit crunch and a supports push by environmental advocates for new investment in green technology. The focus is now being put on to mobilising private capital, raising green taxes and encouraging an industrial skills strategy.
In July 2009 the Government published "The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan" which plots how the UK will meet the 34 per cent cut in emissions on 1990 levels by 2020. The document includes a number of visions which include by 2020 that;
- More than 1.2 million people will be in green jobs.
- 7 million homes will have benefited from whole house makeovers, and more than 1.5 million households will be supported to produce their own clean energy.
- Around 40 percent of electricity will be from low-carbon sources, from renewables, nuclear and clean coal.
- We will be importing half the amount of gas that we otherwise would.
- The average new car will emit 40 percent less carbon than now.
Also in July 2009 the Government published its "Renewable Energy Strategy" which sets out the path for us to meet out legally-binding target to ensure 15% of our energy comes from renewable sources by 2020; almost a seven-fold increase in the share of renewables in scarcely more than a decade.
Wind turbines are considered invaluable tools in the generation of carbon-free electricity; effectively displacing generation by coal and gas power stations and hence reducing C02 emissions. With the exception of hydro-electric generation, wind energy is the most proven form of renewable energy within the UK, which has the largest wind resource in the whole of Europe. This therefore has enabled the UK to conclude that wind power is the most feasible and viable alternative to fossil fuel powered electricity generation at present.
United Nations Committee on Climate Change http://www.ipcc.ch/
Department of Energy and Climate Change http://www.decc.gov.uk/
The Sterns Review http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/stern.htm
Barak Obama New Energy
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/newenergy/index.php
