Renewable energy is derived from self-replenishing natural resources like wind and sunlight. They provide clean, reliable, and sustainable energy sources to temper the world’s over-reliance on fossil fuels such as coal and gas, finite sources that collectively account for over 80 percent of energy production worldwide. Decreasing this dependency through renewable energy offers numerous advantages.
Foremost, renewables play a crucial role in combatting climate change. Scientists agree that fossil fuels represent the leading contributor to climate change, responsible for almost 90 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and more than 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. The situation has led to climate alterations and adverse climate-related events, including more extreme floods, drought, and heat waves.
Expanding renewable energy sources is an important environmental conservation approach. Breaking the global dependence on fossil fuels can limit contaminants and hazards such as mercury pollution that threatens fish and wildlife survival, acid rains that damage lakes and plant life, and toxic waste discharges that poison wildlife and jeopardize natural habitats.
Renewable energy also has economic and social benefits. For instance, it improves the reliance and resilience of power grids. Grid operators can diversify energy sources to cover power outages, and wind and solar systems are less susceptible than standard ones to large-scale failures due to their modular nature. They generate power via individual panels or turbines, which means that isolated equipment malfunctions typically do not disrupt the entire system. Neither system shares nonrenewable power plants’ reliance on water either, freeing them of water scarcity challenges.
Such features also signify that power from renewables can serve the energy needs of rural communities. Many of these communities cannot access national power grids, and those that can may remain without power for hours or days when outages occur. Renewables enable the establishment of local microgrids that do not require a connection to a centralized grid. For rural communities that concentrate on agricultural activities, solar and wind systems can also reduce competition for water.
Additionally, increasing reliance on renewable energy can help stabilize energy prices for consumers. Since most resources used as fuel by this sector are free and readily available, renewable facilities can operate at a lower cost than fossil fuel plants. The price of renewable energy technologies also continue to drop, whereas fossil fuel prices are prone to fluctuation and sharper increases. These factors allow energy producers to set lower prices.
Moreover, renewables make economic sense. In 2020, the global economy spent over $5 trillion subsidizing fossil fuels. However, a 2021 report from the International Energy Agency estimated that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 will require yearly investments of approximately $4 trillion into renewable energy until 2030. Renewable energy also offsets its upfront costs in the long-term with high return on investment, including possible annual savings of up to $4.2 trillion worldwide by 2030 from reduced climate and pollution impacts alone.
Job markets will benefit as well. Investing in renewable energy sources creates job opportunities for workers in technical and non-technical fields, with workforces needed for operations like installing, overseeing, and maintaining each power system. According to the United Nations (UN), renewable energy provides three times more new jobs for every dollar invested than in the fossil fuel sector.
