Back in the day, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and people lived in caves, our ancestors generated heat for cooking and to keep warm by burning wood. A few centuries later they graduated to burning coal as well as wood, or in some areas, peat. Fast forward to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and we generate much of our energy by burning, coal, gas and oil to provide our energy directly or to generate electricity. Whether it be in our ancestor’s cave or our modern semi-detached suburban home, we have until recently generated most of our energy requirements by burning our fuels.

Coal, gas and oil are all fossil fuels and in burning they produce smoke and carbon dioxide, which we now know is harmful to the earth’s atmosphere. These fossil fuels are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, contributing over 75% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of carbon dioxide emissions. That being the case, to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, emissions need to be reduced by almost half by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050.

Net zero means cutting greenhouse gas emissions to near zero with the balance of remaining emissions being absorbed from our atmosphere, by our oceans and the trees in our forests This means we need to invest in alternative, clean sources of energy that are affordable, reliable and sustainable, because even our fossil fuels are now beginning to show signs of running out or becoming more difficult and expensive to access.

The power energy industries have been responsible for around three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions in recent years so if we could replace burning coal, gas and oil to provide us with energy and switch to renewable sources, such as wind, solar or hydro-electric this would dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

Renewable energy comes from a source that will not run out in the way fossil fuels will but will be a constant, consistent source of energy for as long as the sun shines, the wind blows and rivers flow. It is worth noting that hydro-power output, which generated 17% of global electricity, the third‑largest source after coal, oil and gas fell by 0.4% in 2021 due to droughts caused mainly by global warming.

Burning fossil fuels releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. These greenhouse gasses trap the sun’s heat, warming the surface of the planet which has far-reaching consequences for people and the planet. We have all seen the effects of climate change that brings, longer, hotter and dryer summers, warmer winters and general changes in our weather pattern. These changes have brought drought to some regions, flash floods or wildfires to others, changes which affect the production of our foodstuffs.

The challenge then is to replace oil and gas as the major power generation fuels with solar and wind energy, neither of which generates or releases any appreciable greenhouse gases. Both of these are natural phenomena. The wind is ever present and technology does not require strong winds to generate electricity. The sun doesn’t shine during the hours of darkness, but the demand for electricity during those hours is also much reduced.

As renewable energy sources such as wind and solar become more widely used, the technology associated with them is advancing. With the growth in electric vehicles, the demand for batteries that will allow a longer range between charges has meant that battery technology has developed and renewable energy sources are also benefiting from this. If we have the ability to generate electricity when demand is low, as we have with solar and by linking that with advanced battery technology, we can now store electricity generated during daylight hours and feed that back into the system during the hours of darkness.

It may also be worth noting under the present political climate, that around 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries that rely on imports of fossil fuels from other countries. As we are now all aware, that makes these countries open to political pressure from the producing country and economic instability, as a result of contrived market price manipulation. Many third world countries, which will now be seeing an appreciable rise in electricity demand, have no access to indigenous oil or gas supplies but have both wind and sunlight which they can harness to generate the power they need, making them less reliant on outside influences.

The crisis which is global warming has been the main driver toward renewable energy sources as a carbon free alternative to fossil fuels, although some would argue that while the greenhouse gases issue has been high on the environmental agenda for some time, it has perhaps lacked the political will needed to push it up the global agenda. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed all that. With so many European economies reliant on Russian oil and gas supplies to generate both domestic and industrial power and so much of the global economy reliant on stable oil and gas prices, the resultant price rises caused by this invasion have triggered a global financial crisis fuelled by soaring energy costs.

Oil and gas supplies and prices have been used as a lever against economic sanctions in a way which many western leaders either did not see or were prepared to ignore. No nation, however can stop the wind from blowing and powering our wind turbines or the sun from shining and producing energy from our solar panels and this has brought a new urgency to the development of renewable energy networks.

The global energy crisis has turbo-charged the drive toward renewable energy, which will see the world set to add as much renewable capacity in the next 5 years as it did in the past 20 years. In Europe, forecasts suggest that the amount of renewables set to be added in the next five year period will be twice that of the previous five-years.

There is no doubt that burning fossil fuels adds to the harmful greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to global warming and over the past few decades we have taken steps to limit our use of fuels such as oil, gas and coal, but having seen our world leaders set targets for our emissions, it is evident that we are on course to fall short of these targets. With the new political will and fresh impetus that has given the world, it is probable that our steps will now become giant strides toward not just a more stable geopolitical energy market but a cleaner, greener world which is in step to achieve the reduction in greenhouse gases needed to alleviate the problem of global warming.

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