The REN21 Steering Committee oversaw the elaboration of the REN21 issue paper Changing Climates - The Role of Renewable Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World and released it during the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Dubai in February 2006. The report was produced and published by UNEP Risoe Centre.

The REN21 Report states that renewable energy must play a major role in the global energy supply to meet the increasingly serious environmental and economic threats of climate change. To accelerate both the development of better renewable energy technology and markets in the next decades, policy action is required at both national and international levels. With the current and predicted cost competetiveness of many renewable energy technologies, it is not necessary to wait for strenghtened global agreements before taking action at the national level.

On request by the UK government, a team within the UK Treasury under the leadership of  Sir Nicholas Stern has studied the economics of climate change, in particular the cost of action and the cost of non-action. The Stern Review presented just before the COP12 climate conference in Nairobi 2006 received very much attention also outside the climate change-concerned community. The Stern Review disproves the widespread misperceptions of many economists regarding the cost of counteracting climate change, which has led to a wait-and-see policy. It demonstrates that non-action will entail dramatic global economic losses and that decisive and urgent political action is needed to reduce them. Renewable energy is highlighted as one of the important options.

The review says that "in some sectors - particularly electricity generation, where new technologies can struggle to gain a foothold - policies to support the market for early-stage technologies will be critical. The Review argues that the scale of existing deployment incentives worldwide should increase by two to five times, from the current level of around $34 billion per annum. Such measures will be a powerful motivation for innovation across the private sector to bring forward the range of technologies."

The Review underlines the importance of international policy networking: "Both informal and formal co-ordination of national policies for deployment support can accelerate cost reductions by increasing the scale of new markets across borders. Many countries and US states now have specific national objectives and policy frameworks to support the deployment of renewable energy technologies. Transparency and information-sharing have already helped to boost interest in these."

At the United Nations COP12 Climate Conference held in Nairobi in November 2006, REN21 was involved in a side event discussing the IEA's World Energy Outlook 2006, which demonstrates that policies for renewables can change energy sector CO₂ emissions dramatically. For the needed scenarios to come true, however, appropriate policy measures must be adopted.

Download:

• Changing Climates (as pdf, 1.4 MB)
• Press Release: Launch of "Changing Climates" in Dubai (as pdf, 150 KB)