Wind and solar energy: moving towards a green future

ARTICLE: 'Countries across the world are now on the same path - building wind turbines and solar panels to replace electricity from coal and gas-fired power plants. But to keep a chance of limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees, coal generation needs to fall by 13% every year this decade. The fact that, during a global pandemic, coal generation has still only fallen by 8% shows just how far off-track we still are. We have the solution, it's working, it's just not happening fast enough.' - Dave Jones, Senior Electricity Analyst at Ember

Climate change is a fast approaching existential threat to the existence of life as we know it unless there is a better adoption of strategies to slow the pace of climate change, and even to reverse it. Among other important steps is the need to move towards renewable sources of energy for producing electricity; and within them, two of the most readily available sources include wind and solar energy.

Sadly, Pakistan, which is among the top ten countries globally to be most affected by climate change, the move towards wind and renewable energy is painfully slow, which is quite surprising given the overall hot semi-arid nature of topography of most parts of the country, with a relatively long coastline - ranked 66th in the world, according to World Resources Institute.

In a recent study by Ember, it was pointed out that the top 10 countries in this regard included many emerging economies, whereas the fourth-ranked country in this regard was Turkey where solar and wind energy had a 13 per cent share in its total electricity generated; followed by Brazil (6th), China (7th), and India (8th), all producing 10 per cent of their electricity from these two renewable sources of energy. According to the Report, during the same time period, Vietnam made huge strides towards wind and solar energy. In this regard, the Report indicated the following: 'Vietnam recorded probably the largest increase in solar generation of any country in H1 [first half] -2020, rising 5.35 times compared to H1-2019. Vietnam is making up for lost time increasing its share of wind and solar from 0.2% of its electricity mix in 2018 to 6.4% in the first half of 2020.'

Pakistan, being an emerging economy itself, should also look to move from polluting and expensive sources of electricity in the shape of coal and furnace oil, and more towards wind and solar energy; it's also required to improve generation numbers from the traditional source of hydro. This is important for both meaningfully meeting the challenge of climate change, but such a move towards two important renewable sources of energy - wind and solar - would also help lighten the burden on country's import payments; it will also help reduce the component of imported inflation in the country's overall inflation numbers.

Having said that, globally the percentage of electricity produced through these two sources was at a paltry 10 per cent, and needed to rise drastically to put up a better fight to climate change. Here, during the same time period, Germany and the United Kingdom, ranked first and second, respectively, produced quite a high percentage of electricity from wind and solar energy. The share of two sources in total electricity produced in Germany stood at 42 per cent, and in the United Kingdom at 33 per cent.

Earlier in March 2020, Ember released its annual report through which it pointed out a lack of shift away from coal, as a source of energy, in Asia overall. In this regard, the report highlighted that in 2019 '68 GW of coal plants were built in 2019, the highest in three years 95% of this new coal capacity was in Asia: China built 44 GW, India 8 GW, Malaysia 2.6 GW, Indonesia 2.4 GW, Pakistan 2.0 GW, Japan 1.3 GW and the Philippines 1.2 GW.' This indicates the flip side of the positive of high growth rates in Asia, since it still employs a lot of non-green energy sources.

In contrast, according to the report, 'Global coal-fired electricity generation fell by 3% in 2019, leading to a 2% fall in Co2 power sector emissions. Both of these are the biggest falls since at least 1990. Coal collapsed in the EU and the US; but Chinese coal generation rose and for the first time was responsible for half of global coal generation. The carbon-intensity of global electricity is now 15% lower than in 2010.'

The report highlighted that a lot more needed to be done with regard to coal-fire electricity generation. In this regard, the report pointed out that 'But falling coal is not yet the "new normal", which means limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees is looking extremely difficult. The coal fall in 2019, as well as relying on the structural shift towards wind and solar, relied on many other one-of factors. Progress is being made on reducing coal generation, but with nothing like the urgency needed to meet global climate goals, especially in Asia.'

In addition to the fast approaching existential threat in the shape of climate change, the current pandemic has forcefully highlighted the need to move towards a 'Green New Deal', which means moving away from non-clean energy sources like coal and oil, and towards renewable energy sources like wind and solar energy.

(The writer holds PhD in Economics from the University of Barcelona; he previously worked at International Monetary Fund) He tweets@omerjaved7

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020