By Jamey Keaten — Associated Press, Wednesday 18 May 2022
GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations chief on Wednesday launched a five-point plan to jump-start broader use of renewable energies, as the UN’s weather agency reported that greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat, sea-level rise and ocean acidification hit new records last year. “We must end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the renewable energy transition before we incinerate our only home. Time is running out,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate Report for 2021 said the last seven years were the seven hottest on record.
Guterres’s five-point plan calls for: fostering technology transfer and lifting intellectual property protections in renewable technologies like battery storage; broadening access to supply chains and raw materials for renewable technologies; reforming government policies to promote renewable energies such as by fast-tracking solar and wind projects; shifting away from government subsidies for fossil fuels that now total half a trillion dollars per year; and tripling private and public investments in renewable energy to at least $4 trillion a year. “While people suffer from high prices at the pump, the oil and gas industry is raking in billions from a distorted market. This scandal must stop,” Guterres said. He also noted that government subsidies for fossil fuels are today more than three times higher than those for renewables. Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather noted: “If clean energy sources are cheaper than fossil fuels, they become a win-win and will be adopted more rapidly.”