160 countries, during the last two years, have announced to the public that they are planning to largely convert to clean energy between the years 2020 and 2030. This announcement is the largest commitment to be done to date, not only in major countries but also in small and less developed countries as well.
It is well known that the major Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emitters, such as the United States, China, The European Union, Brazil, Japan, India, Indonesia and Mexico, if these countries achieved their post-2020 plans, the total green energy production would increase by 2030 by 10,000 terawatt hours (TWh), which nearly equals India’s total energy demand today. Which means that those countries will double their clean energy production by 2030 compared 2013 and will increase the world’s clean energy production by 25%.
Generally, the plans of clean energy of countries lie in the frame of either having desired outcomes, like increase the production of clean energy to a desired level or percent, or planned actions, like the policies of renewable energy as follows:
- In the context of outcome-based plans, 122 countries have clean energy plans for post-2020, for example, the United States have committed to increasing the production of clean energy mix beyond hydroelectricity by 20% by the year of 2030. And New Zealand has announced their intention to have 90% of their electricity generated by renewable sources by the year 2025 and Namibia by 70% by the year 2030 compared to 33% in 2010.
- And on the action-based post-2020 plans side, Korea have announced that they will make power generators have part of electricity supplied by renewable sources. Kenya also plans to increase the geothermal, solar and wind energy production. While Vietnam will develop a market based on renewable energy technology and it will be supported by all the local companies and organizations to enhance the national economy.
The large scale of these plans gives promising signals of the intention of many countries to convert their energy mixes and to increase the investments in green and renewable energies. And while these plans go farther than the expected policy scenarios for the growth of renewable energy, and we know that we still need to go farther than this to reach the long-term goals of these commitments and achieve and net-zero greenhouse gas emission by the second half of the century.