International experts focus on solutions to climate change | WPN World People News

Greenpeace is urging governments and corporate leaders to accelerate the transition to 100% clean, safe energy as scientists and officials meet in Berlin this week to finalise the UN climate panel’s report on the solutions to climate change.

The report, to be presented on Sunday 13 April, is the third part of the Fifth Assessment Report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The previous two parts assessed the science and impacts of climate change.

"We expect the IPCC’s conclusions to reflect breakthroughs with solar and wind energy that have taken place over the past few years. Renewable energy has expanded, fallen in price and is ready to challenge traditional, polluting forms of energy,” said Kaisa Kosonen of Greenpeace International. “There is still time to prevent catastrophic levels of global warming.”

Lack of action by governments and corporations has meant that emissions of greenhouse gases have continued to increase since the last IPCC report was published in 2007. But at the same time renewable energy has made significant progress. Global solar photovoltaic generating capacity has increased tenfold and wind power capacity threefold. Renewable energy is now increasingly competitive with fossil fuels, and the least-cost option in a growing number of markets.

Extreme levels of air pollution are also leading to changes in China’s energy system.

“Over half of the growth in global emissions of carbon dioxide since 2002 has been from increased coal burning in China. That has created enormous air pollution problems for our cities. But China’s coal consumption trend is now changing rapidly due to new pollution prevention policies,” according to Li Shuo, Greenpeace East Asia’s Climate & Energy Campaigner, who will be participating in the IPCC meeting in Berlin.

The host country, Germany, now relies on clean, renewable energy for almost 25% of its power needs, up from 8% in 2002. By 2050 it aims to satisfy at least 80% of its electricity demand from renewables while at the same time phasing out nuclear power.

"Germany is committed to a clean energy transition and this is the message for everyone,” said Li Shuo. “We’re seeing signs of this shift in China, too, and the country has become the world leader in clean energy investments. But it must speed up.”

Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace Germany said, "Germany's energy transition is an inspiration to the world but we still have much to do. European climate targets allow for increased use of coal and Chancellor Merkel is failing to address this. Furthermore, she is allowing the destruction of villages for new brown coal in Germany. This is unacceptable and has to change.”

A small team of Greenpeace experts will attend the IPCC meeting as civil society observers. In a separate event on Friday 11 April Greenpeace will present new data on renewable energy and report on China's recent air quality policies and their potential significance for emission trends in China and globally.

Source: Greenpeace International