Mark Kinver, BBC News Environment Reporter, writes that a study commissioned by the United Nations reports that less-developed nations invested in renewable energy tenfold the amount spent by developed countries. Viewed as an investment, assuming that the renewable energy infrastructure lasts long enough to pay for itself (a safe bet), the energy produced thereafter is essentially without cost. And the higher energy prices rise – and the faster they rise – the better the return on investment. The worst of the likely outcomes is that energy prices rise slowly – but the countries with the biggest investment in clean renewables will still have a direct economic advantage (lower energy costs), and such indirect advantages as lowered health and environmental costs. Taken to an extreme, this trend could reverse the standing of “less-developed” and “more-developed” countries within a generation or two. From “Green Energy Investment Hits Record High“:
Global investment in renewable energy sources grew by 32% during 2010 to reach a record level of US$211bn £132bn, a UN study has reported.The main growth drivers were backing for wind farms in China and rooftop solar panels in Europe, it said.It also found that developing nations invested more in green power than rich nations for the first time last year.The Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011 report was prepared for the UN by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.”The continuing growth in this core segment of the green economy is not happening by chance,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN
Environment Programme.”The combination of government target-setting, policy support and stimulus funding is underpinning the renewable industry’s rise and bringing the much needed transformation of our global energy system within reach.”In 2010, developing economies spent more on “financial new investment”, pumping $72bn into renewable projects compared with the $70bn outlay by developed economies.
via BBC News – Green energy investment hits record global high.
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