Two weeks of climate negotiations in Paris waiting. But the most important initiative may already be clear. 20 countries have pledged a historic gain of energy research.
On Monday, started the climate negotiations in Paris. Government leaders, ministers and negotiators from around the world have two weeks in which to fulfill the hopes of a new global agreement on emission reductions.
But perhaps what will prove to be the meeting’s main initiatives were signed even before the inauguration. The author is neither top diplomat or president, no philanthropist.
US President Barack Obama launched along with Bill Gates, two giant project on Monday. One of the fundamental research and development of new energy – “Mission Innovation” – and one for private investment in green technology.
Microsoft founder has murmured before the Paris meeting. Where are the new energy law that will knock out the oil and coal? How long will we have to wait for the cheap and efficient batteries that can store solar energy and electricity from the wind?
The technology does all the time progress. Bill Gates himself has found several promising innovations, such as a new kind of paint which also functions as the solar panels. And even now can renewable energy sources competitive with fossil fuels in many markets.
But progress is not as fast as it should. Research and development has not been high enough on the UN agenda, claiming Gates. He’s right.
Finance Magdalena Andersson pays out the same amount in a summer vacation money to the municipalities.
The governments have shied away from their responsibilities. The gradual recognition of human impact on the climate has coincided with a period of shrinking research. In recent decades, members of the International Energy Agency, IEA, downsized their energy development considerably.
Bill Gates points out that the US spends five times more on medical research than on the development of energy. What is still more than most. Is it a sensible long-term priority, when the entire world’s energy system must soon be about?
Even Sweden has sinned . From 1970 until the 1990s halved the Swedish funding for energy research. Field said While being politicized and not give any results. But the agents had been able to benefit in basic research. The atomic technology considering the ban that the government imposed after the Chernobyl accident, has further contributed to the stagnation of knowledge.
The negative research trend has been broken, but the investments do not correspond at all to our high tail carriage on the climate. In the state budget that parliament now treats are 200 extra million for energy.
It is an embarrassing pittance. Next year pay Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson charge the same amount in a special summer vacation money to the municipalities.
By participating in the “Mission Innovation” undertakes Sweden and 19 other countries are doubling the funding for research into clean energy. The increase shall take place within five years. Among other things, Norway, India and Saudi Arabia are also part of the project. It is excellent, and will not be a day too soon.
There is also space for Sweden to actually “go ahead”. NIER pointed out several years ago on the benefits of increased research ambitions and more support for technological development.
Not least, the strategy is an alternative to the inefficient subsidies and investment grants that the red-green government is now investing heavily. Previous experience of political wishful thinking horrifies, existing technologies has far too rarely held up. Sweden’s passion for ethanol, or E85, suspected, for example, have given increased emissions. It would be better to give researchers and the market free rein.
The Earth’s climate is a commons. If a factory spewing out greenhouse gases in the atmosphere suffer any damage. The entire planet is heating up. And vice versa: It is not enough that a government affirmed that it will build the world’s first fossil-free nation. It is not even half of the world’s countries uproot themselves.
Fortunately, it is also knowledge and technology, a kind of commons. Here, however, the contagion effects positive. If a country – or for that matter 20 – invest in basic research favor the more. Everyone can benefit from breakthroughs. Developments ripples on the water and leads to further innovations.
For us to meet emissions targets required a technological revolution, and the interplay between innovation and climate policy. The availability of cheap and clean alternatives is critical for countries’ willingness to abandon the dirty coal. The world’s governments, including the Swedish, needs to raise its research policy ambitions.
No comments:
Post a Comment