Renewables will boost economy
Mark Fulton, MD of Deutsche Bank's Climate Change Investment Research Unit (DBCCA) , introducing a major study of climate change policy winners and losers
"Countries with more TLC - transparency, longevity, and certainty - in their climate policy frameworks will attract more investment and will build new clean industries, technologies and jobs faster than their policy lagging counterparts”
He went on to cite Germany, China and the UK as countries developing strong domestic policy that will mitigate climate change and Russia, the USA, Spain and Canada failing to initiate or even reverse climate policies. The DBCCA feel 2011 will be a key year for renewables with Fukishima and the impacts of “Arab Spring” on oil prices catalysing the transition towards renewables.
Science Daily report on studies by by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISIin Karlsruhe, suggesting fears that renewables pose a threat to Germany's economic development are unfounded. The study, for the EU, predicts that
"some 2.8 million people will be employed in Europe's renewable energy sector, once implementation of EU objectives in this area has taken hold. The negative impact of a shift to alternative energy is far outweighed by the remaining positive net effect of some 400,000 additional jobs in the EU as a whole”
Prof. Eicke Weber, spokesperson for the Fraunhofer Energy Alliance and Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Freiburg said
"The transition to sustainable energy supplies is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. To keep electricity, heat and transportation prices affordable in the future, we have to use energy more efficiently and devote more research to the development of renewable sources."
Predicting falling prices for renewables and stressing the need to develop efficiencies as well as renewable technologies the institute also stress the need for the development of smart grid technologies to deal with and increasingly diverse energy supply.
