For quite some time now, a renewable energy revolution has been growing, first silently, but recently it has rightfully gotten more attention. With the international political climate we are operating in at the moment, all good climate news are sorely welcome, and these news are actually quite extraordinary.
In May Blackrock, one of the worlds biggest coal investment companies, declared that: ’Coal is dead. That's not to say all the coal plants are going to shut tomorrow. But anyone who's looking to take beyond a 10-year view on coal is gambling very significantly’.
The coal industry emits enormous amounts of CO2 and is therefor considered one of the worst contributors to climate change.
There is a broad agreement that in order to reach the targets set in the Paris agreement, emission must be cut, and especially from coal. ‘Fossil fuels are dead. But this is in the long term. It won’t happen over night, or in two to three years. But it will disappear’ said the US biggest railway transporter recently to Financial Times.
Blackrock also announced that they are seing a change in attitudes towards renewable energy; earlier they were heavily subsides. whereas now we see that they are even financially good investments without subsides.
‘What has fundamentally changed the picture is that renewables has become so cheap!’ head of Blackrock says. The EU saved 16 billion euro in energy import, due to its own renewable production, and these savings are estimated to increase to 58 billions by 2030, according to the EU commission.
The headlines about either falling coal demand and the rise in renewables in India and China are really changing the global energy situation for the better.
The future for renewables are looking bright, and we can expect more good news to come soon.