A Carbon Market Will Make Clean Energy Cheap Alternative
Louise Blouin Foundation - The Metropolitan Club
During the fall of 2011 the United Nations Climate Change conference in Durban, South Africa found support from participating member nations, to draft a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, set to expire in 2012. This new, legally binding agreement will be fully developed by 2015 and will come into effect in 2020. It not only has the aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and therefore prevent a rise in global temperatures by 2ºC, but will also work to establish funding and technology initiatives, in order to help the world’s poorest nations cope with climate change. However, despite this progress towards a global regulatory framework that according to the OECD will keep energy consumption levels relatively stable within OECD countries over the next three decades, non-OECD consumption levels will rise by 60%. On average by 2040, global consumption of energy will be 30% greater than what it is today. The question then becomes how can such a demand be met when the majority of the world’s energy comes from the burning of coal and petroleum while, at the same time, respecting and participating in important global climate regulation? This panel will ask: how can global energy supply needs be met within the coming decades since current energy sources are understood as both polluting and finite? Second, alongside governmental pressures, what role do the markets have in pricing oil and other fossil fuels so that alternative energy sources can become viable? Finally, what new technologies or energy sources can be made available that are both clean and scalable?
