Environment Ministers Meet to Accelerate Transition to a Low Carbon Society
Huge Investment Opportunities in Energy Savings to Renewables and Reduced Deforestation to Climate Proofing if Markets can be Mobilized
 Press
Release from 02/20/08 - 22:00 h: 10th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum-Principality of Monaco 20-22nd February
More than doubling annual improvements in energy efficiency could play a key role in averting catastrophic climate change, a report to environment ministers says.
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Over recent years advances and investments in energy savings in areas from transport and power generation to industry and households has been reducing the intensity of energy used by one to one and-a-half per cent a year.
"If the rate of energy efficiency improvement could be increased to 2.5 per cent world-wide it would be possible to keep carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere below 550 parts per million (ppm) through the end of the century," the findings suggest.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2,000 plus scientists established by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation to advise governments, estimates that to avoid dangerous climate change emissions need to be stabilized at between 535 to 590 ppm in 2050.
An increase in investments in low carbon and renewable energies is also underway which, if accelerated and fostered widely could also assist in meeting global climate change targets alongside helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Currently close to 60 countries have targets for renewables including 13 developing countries while around 80 have market mechanisms in place-feed-in tariffs and renewable portfolio standards- to encourage renewable energy development.
These policy measures are playing an important role in driving national and global markets.
In 2007, financial transactions in the sustainable energy sector reached 0 billion up from just over 0 billion in 2006.
A fundamental change is also emerging in terms of the range of investors entering these markets.
"The quickest growth in sustainable energy capital mobilization has come from four sectors that had previously shown little interest-venture capitalists and private equity investors; public capital markets and investment banks," says the report being presented to the annual gathering of environment ministers at UNEP's Governing Council-Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GC/GMEF) in Monaco.
The rise in such investments is not only triggering new business opportunities in both developed and developing countries while contributing to countering the increase in greenhouse gases.
The new report, drafted to assist the ministerial discussions, notes that more than 2.3 million people now have jobs in the renewable energy sector versus around 2 million in oil and gas and four million in the global air transport industry.
Achim Steiner, UN Under Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: " A transition to a low carbon society and a Green Economy is underway driven by the science and treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol and prospects, emerging as part of the Bali 'Road Map', of an even more deeper and decisive emissions reduction regime post 2012".
