Major milestones reached on renewable energy investments, UN reports – 25 March 2016 – Coal and gas-fired electricity generation last year drew less than half the record investment made in solar, wind and other renewables capacity – one of several important firsts for green energy recently announced in a United Nations-backed report.
“Renewables are becoming ever more central to our low-carbon lifestyles, and the record-setting investments in 2015 are further proof of this trend,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner in a press release. “Importantly, for the first time in 2015, renewables in investments were higher in developing countries than developed.”
Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016, the 10th edition of the annual publication issued by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), says the annual global investment in new renewables capacity, at $266 billion, was more than double the estimated $130 billion invested in coal and gas power stations in 2015.
The report, launched today by the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), highlights that all investments in renewables, including early-stage technology and research and development as well as spending on new capacity, totalled $286 billion in 2015, some three per cent higher than the previous record in 2011. Since 2004, the world has invested $2.3 trillion in renewable energy (unadjusted for inflation).
Major milestones reached on renewable energy investments, UN reports
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53550#.VvvyaVhwaM8
