The report by the Renewable Energy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) shows that Australia is slipping behind the pace with 144 countries around the world adopting renewable energy targets and with renewable energy now powering about a fifth of the world’s energy demand.
Clean Energy Council (CEC) Chief Executive David Green said that while Australia’s renewable energy industry was increasingly at a standstill, the REN21 report showed strong global momentum on renewable energy, as governments around the world increasingly recognized the many benefits of shifting their energy use towards cleaner sources.
“With more than 140 countries now adopting renewable energy targets in some form, Australia is part of a mainstream global move towards cleaner sources of power such as solar, wind, bioenergy, hydro, ocean and geothermal energy” Mr Green said. “But Australia is at risk of being left behind as other countries continue to strengthen their targets for renewable energy. The process of constantly reviewing Australia’s Renewable Energy Target is destabilising the market and stalling local investment.”
Mr Green added that US President Barack Obama has announced another acceleration in renewable energy construction this week as part of a comprehensive clean energy package and that China has introduced an ambitious clean energy programme to deal with its air pollution. In 2013 the installation of new renewable energy capacity in China passed fossil fuel and nuclear power for the first time. Last year alone China installed more wind and solar than any other country in the world.
India’s new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has meanwhile pledged to provide enough solar power to run at least one light bulb in every home. Some of the world’s largest economies are those with the most renewable energy installed, including the United States, Germany and Canada.
Australia has some of the best solar, wind and wave resources in the world and so the country’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) needs to be left alone to get on with the job it was designed to do under former Prime Minister John Howard. Business can then get on with driving the creating of much-needed jobs and investment in partnership with local communities.
An estimated 6.5 million people worked directly or indirectly in the renewable energy sector in 2013 and for the first time more solar than wind power was installed worldwide. In Europe, 72 percent of new energy capacity in the European Union came from renewable energy for the sixth straight year, a stark turnaround from a decade earlier when fossil fuel investment accounted for about 80 per cent of new generation capacity.
For additional information:
http://www.ren21.net/REN21Activities/GlobalStatusReport.aspx
