In an interview given to the influential magazine Recharge earlier this month, Steve Sawyer, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) secretary-general said:

 ‘We are already seeing conflicts over resources, and it just gets ugly very quickly. I really think we are teetering on the edge of climate wars. 

Strong stuff indeed. But there is hope and optimism, albeit cautious, in his 2015 message. Steve has just returned from the United Nations climate summit in Lima, Peru,  where he and Recharge columnist Jeremy Leggett addressed negotiators on renewable energy’s role in combating global warming. 

During the interview, he illustrates how two green technologies, solar and wind, can work together, rather than be seen as separate routes in competition towards combating climate change. He said:

“I think wind and solar are in some ways in competition, but what I see among my GWEC member companies is an increasing number of them doing both wind and solar — sometimes in different places and sometimes in the same market. Where you have got a situation as you have in Brazil, where you have got wind farms in the North which have got a lot of lands, and they have the substation, and they have got the infrastructure all sorted, and the rest of the land is not used much for anything else… why not try to put solar arrays between the turbines to see how it goes.”

Steve Sawyer, the Global Wind Energy Council and Lima

However, Lima was not a breakthrough conference and doesn’t point towards any great hopes for the important CO21 climate summit in Paris at the end of this year.  It seems that one of the main stumbling blocks to a meaningful global enforceable treaty to cut emissions is the United States, where the composition of Congress means that in-fighting and factionalism will not permit the emergence of strong and directed leadership.

Steve Sawyet GWEC

But it’s not all doom and gloom; Steve Sawyer takes some hope from the recent climate cooperation deal between Washington and Beijing announced a couple of months ago because it at least shows that the heads of the world’s two largest economies and polluters can work together. The most optimistic estimate for 2030 by the GWEC is that there could be two terawatts of global wind energy. But that includes China having 500 GW of wind energy by then, which is really pushing it.

In the interview Steve then discussed the nascent markets of North Africa; Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt, as well as East and South Africa. The overall picture is one of some global cooperation and high ideals, but not enough being translated into hard targets. The GWEC was established in 2005 to provide a credible and representative forum for the entire wind energy sector at an international level: Its mission is to ensure that wind power establishes itself as the key answer to today’s carbon pollution and other energy challenges.

Steve Sawyer joined the Global Wind Energy Council as its first Secretary General in April 2007. The Global Wind Energy Council represents the major wind energy. He has worked in the energy and environment field since 1978, with a particular focus on climate change and renewable energy since 1988.

Steve Sawyer

 

With thanks to Recharge Magazine.

 

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