“Accelerating the transition to renewable energy is now the best bet not just for the planet, but for energy costs too.”
So says Dr Rupert Way, commenting on the findings of a new Oxford University peer-reviewed study published last month in the journal, Joule, which examined the potential impacts of decarbonising the energy sector by 2050.
“There is a pervasive misconception that switching to clean, green energy will be painful, costly and mean sacrifices for us all – but that’s just wrong,” explains Professor Doyne Farmer, who heads the team that carried out the study at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School.
“Renewable costs have been trending down for decades. They are already cheaper than fossil fuels in many situations and, our research shows, they will become cheaper than fossil fuels across almost all applications in the years to come. And, if we accelerate the transition, they will become cheaper faster. Completely replacing fossil fuels with clean energy by 2050 will save us trillions.”
The research shows “the faster we go, the more we will save” Dr Way says, on the back of a study which drilled down into data on the possible cost implications of thousands of different transition models – and found a minimum of $12 trillion could be saved by accelerating the process.
Professor Farmer added: “This study shows ambitious policies to accelerate dramatically the transition to a clean energy future as quickly as possible are, not only, urgently needed for climate reasons, but can save the world trillions in future energy costs, giving us a cleaner, cheaper, more energy secure future.”
