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Climate change
OpinionComment
Jules Kortenhorst
Jules Kortenhorst

The View | Make the switch to cheaper renewable energy and stop wasting trillions on a system that is killing us

  • Data shows a rapid clean-energy transition is the least-expensive path forward
  • The COP26 negotiation process must be reframed so it is less about burden-sharing and more about a lucrative race to deploy cleaner, cheaper and more advanced energy technologies

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Fog covers a windfarm close to Pamplona, Navarra, in northern Spain, on November 12, 2020. New studies have shed light on how a rapid clean-energy transition would work. Photo: EPA-EFE
Jules Kortenhorst

For decades, we at the Rocky Mountain Institute (now RMI) have argued that the transition to clean energy will cost less and proceed faster than governments, firms and many analysts expect.

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In recent years, this outlook has been fully vindicated: costs of renewables have consistently fallen faster than expected, while deployment has proceeded more rapidly than predicted, thereby reducing costs even further.

Thanks to this virtuous cycle, renewables have broken through. And now, new analyses from two authoritative research institutions have added to the mountain of data showing that a rapid clean-energy transition is the least-expensive path forward.

Policymakers, business leaders and financial institutions urgently need to consider the promising implications of this development. With the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow fast approaching, it is imperative that world leaders recognise that achieving the Paris climate agreement’s 1.5 degrees Celsius warming target is not about making sacrifices; it is about seizing opportunities.

The negotiation process must be reframed so that it is less about burden-sharing and more about a lucrative race to deploy cleaner, cheaper energy technologies.

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With the world already suffering from climate-driven extreme weather events, a rapid clean-energy transition also has the virtue of being the safest route ahead. If we fail at this historic task, we risk not only wasting trillions of dollars but also pushing civilisation further down a dangerous and potentially catastrophic path of climate change.
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