IPCC: Renewables to Supply 70%-85% of Electricity by 2050 to Avoid Worst Impacts of Climate Change

The United Nations confronts a future with “the slimmest of opportunities remaining to avoid unthinkable damage.”

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C will require extreme changes, including markedly increasing the percentage of electricity from renewables by mid-century, according to a Sunday report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

The report, commissioned as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, presents a stark portrait of the future unless the world undertakes “rapid, fair-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” in the next decade or so — changes that thus far have been difficult for decision-makers to agree on.

“The report shows that we only have the slimmest of opportunities remaining to avoid unthinkable damage to the climate system that supports life as we know it,” said Amjad Abdulla, an IPCC board member and chief negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States. 

IEA: Renewables fastest growing energy sector

Renewable energy is now firmly entrenched as the world's fastest growing energy sector, according to a major new report from the International Energy Agency released this week.

The book, entitled Deploying Renewables 2011: Best and Future Policy Practice, analyses current trends in renewable energy and sets out a series of proposals designed to help governments develop effective renewable energy policy.