The latest edition of this annual report outlines the latest developments, signs and signals in the financing of renewable power and fuels. Full of statistics, charts and narrative, it explores the issues affecting each type of investment, technology, and region. Overall the report underlines the increasingly positive role renewable energies are playing towards an increasingly low-carbon electricity and power supply.
The report includes case studies from China, India, and Brazil.
This report was produced by the Decoupling Working Group of the International Resource Panel. It explores technological possibilities and opportunities for both developing and developed countries to accelerate decoupling and reap the environmental and economic benefits of increased resource productivity. It also examines several policy options that have proved to be successful in helping different countries to improve resource productivity in various sectors of their economy, avoiding negative impacts on the environment.
It does not seem possible for a global economy based on the current unsustainable patterns of resource use to continue into the future. The economic consequences of these patterns are already apparent in three areas: increases in resource prices, increased price volatility and disruption of environmental systems. The environment impacts of resource use are also leading to potentially irreversible changes to the world’s ecosystems, often with direct effects on people and the economy – for example through damage to health, water shortages, loss of fish stocks or increased storm damage.
Kenya has one of the most dynamic economies in Africa, yet it is facing a number of pressing economic, environmental and social challenges. In recent years, Kenya has adopted several green economy-related approaches and policies, which include implementing renewable energy feed-in tariffs in 2008, embedding sustainable natural resource utilization into its 2010 Constitution and mainstreaming green economy in its Second Medium Term Plan (2013-2017).
In this context, the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, in partnership with UNEP, commissioned a study to assess the economic benefits and challenges of investing in priority economic sectors in support of Kenya’s transition to a green economy. The study examines investments under “business-as-usual” (BAU) compared to green economy scenarios in four key sectors that are critical for the country’s green growth, namely: agriculture, energy, manufacturing and transport.
Jordan 2025: Part II is the continuation of the paper Jordan 2025: A national vision and strategy. It provides the initiatives and priorities identified through the assessment of the sectoral challenges. These initiatives enable the implementation of the policies and initiatives laid out in the paper Jordan 2025: A national vision and strategy.
In a clean energy economy, green businesses play a central role by utilizing renewable energy technologies and employing green labor forces to provide clean energy services and goods. This paper aims at analyzing factors driving the growth and survival of green businesses in the U.S. states, with hypotheses proposed on the impacts from clean energy policies and tax incentives, labor market conditions, and economic and political environments. A fixed effect regression analysis is applied with a panel data set of 48 continental states from 1998 to 2007 in the United States. The statistical analysis with a longitudinal data set reveals that the adoption of renewable energy policies, the permission of renewable energy credits imports, the stringency of minimum wage legislations, and presence of clean energy business associations are the major driving forces of the green business development in the U.S. states.
This report focuses on the wind and solar PV sectors in India. It reviews the Indian policy framework for increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix within the context of multiple social, economic and technological objectives. Based on this analysis, it concludes that while support to the industry has come at a relatively low cost, development has been slow and many policies have been found wanting when evaluated against the originally proposed goals.
The report suggests that ‘green ’rather than ‘industrial’ elements have been best supported by policy to date. Impacts are most clearly seen in energy security and access, avoided health costs and the abatement of greenhouse gas emissions, while the industrial policy element has fared poorly in comparison. Marrying the two elements more completely will allow the benefits of a renewable energy manufacturing sector and environmental protection to be successfully realized.