No more excuses over switch to clean energy

HERE are some depressing facts: there is no global agreement to stop climate change; many countries don’t have a serious policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; fossil fuels still receive more subsidy than clean energy.

And yet despite this, renewable energy is catching on. It will overtake gas as a source of electricity within three years. By 2018, a quarter of the world’s electricity will come from sources like hydropower and wind. Other technologies like solar panels are also going global (see “Rise of renewables starts climate-change fightback“).

This has been done with only sporadic government support, and in the face of opponents arguing that renewables are unreliable and expensive. Such excuses no longer wash. If a grass-roots movement can achieve all this, imagine how clean our energy could be if governments pulled their fingers out.

This article appeared in print under the headline “No more clean energy excuses”