The Rapid Migration to Renewable Energy Is Happening Right In Front of Our Eyes

There are many different cooperating forces that are bringing an end to fossil fuel consumption on this planet far more swiftly than most people understand.  In fact, as I enumerated in Bullish on Renewable Energy, there are 14 reasons that clean energy investors can’t fail, each tied to the ever-growing effectiveness and ever-shrinking cost of solar, wind, storage, electric transportation, smart-grid, etc., as well as other economic pressures, e.g., the need to rewrite the relationship we have with our power utilities.

On top of all of this is public awareness of the environmental and health-related issues associated with coal, oil, and gas—which only serves to accelerate the migration towards renewable energy.  Here’s a story about the Marshall Islands that illustrates that it’s possible for an entire nation to make a bold pledge with respect to renewable energy and climate change mitigation.  From the article:

On Sunday, Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) President Christopher Loeak announced his country would be the first small island nation to submit to the United Nations a clear climate target for 2025 ahead of the upcoming Paris climate summit. 

“I am proud that, despite the climate disasters hitting our shores with increasing regularity, we remain committed to showing the way in the transition to a low-carbon economy,” he said. “We may be small, but we exemplify the new reality that going low carbon is in everyone’s interests.  It improves our economy, our security, our health and our prosperity, particularly in the Pacific and more broadly in the developing world……Our message is simple: if one of the world’s smallest, poorest and most geographically isolated countries can do it, so can you.” 

That’s breath-taking; it’s hard not to be inspired when we see people taking a stand for what’s right in the world.   (Photo: Christopher Michel/cc/flickr)