{"id":1804,"date":"2011-05-10T12:11:49","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T16:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=1804"},"modified":"2011-05-18T10:04:33","modified_gmt":"2011-05-18T14:04:33","slug":"we-could-do-it-77-renewables-world-wide-by-2050","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=1804","title":{"rendered":"We Could Do It: 77% Renewables World-Wide by 2050"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>by James Kanter, NEW YORK TIMES, May 9, 2011<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/dreamstime_16956111.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"dreamstime_16956111\" src=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/dreamstime_16956111_thumb.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"dreamstime_16956111\" width=\"195\" height=\"240\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a> Renewable sources could provide a majority of the world\u2019s energy supplies by 2050, but only if governments dramatically increase financial and political support for technologies like wind and <a title=\"More articles about solar power.\" href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/news\/science\/topics\/solar_energy\/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier\">solar power<\/a>, experts from a <a title=\"More articles about the United Nations.\" href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/organizations\/u\/united_nations\/index.html?inline=nyt-org\">United Nations<\/a> panel said Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The <a title=\"More articles about Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.\" href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/organizations\/i\/intergovernmental_panel_on_climate_change\/index.html?inline=nyt-org\">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change<\/a> said in a report that the availability of renewable sources like the wind and sun was virtually unlimited, and could provide up to 77 percent of the world\u2019s energy needs by mid-century, but governments needed to adopt policies to take advantage of them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe report shows that it is not the availability of the resource, but the public policies that will either expand or constrain renewable energy development over the coming decades,\u201d said Ram\u00f3n Pichs Madruga, a member of the I.P.C.C. and the director of an economics research center in Cuba.<\/p>\n<p>The report said renewable sources \u2014 bioenergy, wind, solar, <a title=\"Recent and archival news about geothermal power.\" href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/news\/science\/topics\/geothermal_power\/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier\">geothermal<\/a>, hydropower and ocean energy \u2014 currently accounted for about 13 percent of global energy supply.<\/p>\n<p>To reach the goal of generating nearly 80 percent of the world\u2019s energy from those same sources would require investments by governments and the private sector amounting to $5.1 trillion through 2020, and nearly $7.2 trillion between 2021 and 2030, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>The benefits would include better public health from cleaner air, as well as fewer greenhouse gas emissions, which would help hold an increase in global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/05\/10\/business\/energy-environment\/10energy.html?emc=tnt&amp;tntemail0=y\" target=\"_blank\">[Read rest of story]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Against all the &#8220;it can&#8217;t be done&#8221; people, the UN has provided an authoritative timeline for the world to get its act together climate-wise by 2050.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[17,69],"tags":[356,1119,1121,1122,351,1114,1120,144,1116,1115],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1804"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1815,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1804\/revisions\/1815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}