NAIROBI – In just two
years, the idea of a "Green Economy,"
with its links to sustainable development
and poverty eradication, has gone from being
an interesting idea to being among the top
two issues at the upcoming UN Conference
on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20.
Many people may wonder
whether the Green Economy is just pleasing
jargon or a genuinely new pathway to a low-carbon,
resource-efficient, and sustainable twenty-first
century. Is it the fundamental departure
from the development models of the past
that its advocates proclaim, or just another
case of the emperor's new environmental
clothes?
Perhaps the answer can
be found in some of the extraordinary transitions
taking place in the electricity and energy
sectors around the world. Many people, for
example, scoff at the idea that solar power
could be anything but a niche market for
enthusiasts or a costly white elephant,
over-hyped by environmental do-gooders.
In 2002, one private equity fund estimated
that annual installations of solar photovoltaic
(PV) arrays might reach 1.5 gigawatts (GW)
by 2010. In fact, 17.5 GW was installed
in 2010, up 130% from 2009. And PV installations
are forecast to rise further this year,
by perhaps 20.5GW, taking global capacity
to around 50 GW – the equivalent of around
15 nuclear reactors.
All of this is not happening
only in developed economies like Germany,
Spain, and the United States, but in countries
like Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Mexico,
and Morocco. Indeed, according to an estimate
by IMS Market Research, more than 30 countries
will be part of this emerging solar revolution
by 2015.
None of this has come
about by chance. Some countries have moved
early to embrace the energy dimension of
a Green Economy, and have introduced the
necessary public policies and incentives.
Considerable manufacturing capacity has
been added, which has halved costs over
the past two years. In fact, PV prices are
set to halve again this year.
A nuclear power plant
can take 10-15 years to build, and a coal-fired
power station around five years. Mid-size
solar plants of 5-10 negawatts, however,
are now taking only about three months to
get from the planning stage to construction.
With the advent of smart grids and free-market
pricing, solar PV seems well positioned
to provide solutions that are quick to build
and scalable.
The International Energy
Agency estimates that, to achieve universal
access to electricity by 2030, around $33
billion in additional annual investments
in the power sector will be needed. That
sounds like a lot of money, especially in
the wake of the economic and financial crisis
that is still troubling large parts of the
world. But new investment just in solar
PV was around $89 billion in 2010. Multibillion-dollar
investments also flowed into new wind farms,
geothermal plants, and a host of other renewable-energy
technologies.
The green shoots of
a Green Economy are emerging across the
power sector, driven by concerns about climate
change, air pollution, and energy security
– as well as by the desire to generate new
kinds of competitive, employment-growing
industries. They can also be seen in the
growth of recycling industries in South
Korea, or the way Indonesia is factoring
forests into its social and economic planning.
The challenge for Rio+20 is to agree on
a range of forward-looking policies that
can be deployed in part or in whole to accelerate
all of this up.
At the UN Environment
Program's upcoming Governing Council/Global
Ministerial Environment Forum in Nairobi,
Kenya, we will launch a landmark contribution
to this debate, with the release of A Transition
to a Green Economy. The report analyzes
how a global investment of 2% of global
GDP in the Green Economy could unleash economic
growth and positive social outcomes, while
keeping humanity's planetary footprint within
sustainable boundaries.
In particular, the catalytic
choices for ten sectors – from agriculture,
fisheries, and forests to transport and
buildings – are as relevant to developing
as they are to developed countries. And
they are as relevant to state-led as they
are to more market-driven economies.
There will always be
those who smile skeptically at the mere
notion of a Green Economy and dismiss such
far-reaching transitions. It is time to
put the numbers on the table and show how
advances in solar power alone are starting
to prove them wrong.
Copyright: Project Syndicate,
2011.
www.project-syndicate.org
