Wind energy can save the world from 10 billion tonne of carbon (CO2) emission by 2020, said Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) at the COP14 (the 14th Conference of Parties) climate summit in the Polish city of Poznan recently. The coalition has launched a global campaign ?Wind Power Works?, to spread the power of wind energy in combating climate change.
According to GWEC?s secretary general Steve Sawyer, the campaign intends to demonstrate to the global decision makers that wind energy is the leading power generation technology with the ability to achieve substantial cuts in CO2 emissions in the crucial timeframe up to 2020. By this time, global emissions need to peak and start to decline to avoid the most disastrous effects of climate change, he added.
?Already today, wind energy is working in over 70 countries around the world, saving hundreds of millions of tonne of CO2 emissions and delivering clean, reliable energy. However, for wind energy to meet its full potential we need ambitious and legally binding emissions reduction targets and expanded carbon market mechanisms to facilitate the broadest dissemination of wind power. Wind is the leading electricity generation technology that can deliver major emissions reductions in the critical timeframe up to 2020,?he said. In its recently published ?Wind Energy Outlook 2008?, GWEC set out a scenario under which wind energy could provide 12% of global electricity needs and save 1.5 billion tonne of CO2 every year by 2020. This would add up to 10 billion tonne of CO2 mitigated by wind power within this time frame.
Between COP14 and the COP15 climate change negotiations in December 2009 in Copenhagen, the ?Wind Power Works? coalition would promote aggressive emissions reductions targets and a rapid deployment of wind energy around the world, Swayer said.
Peter Brun, senior vice president of government relations of Vestas Wind Systems, the world?s largest wind turbine manufacturing company, said in Poznan that, ?Wind energy has a massive potential to deliver cost effective, reliable and clean energy virtually anywhere in the world, but in order to realise this, we need the political will by governments to reduce emissions to a sustainable level.? He said, ?We are here in Poznan to call on global leaders to match their words with action, and to make them realise that existing mature technology can play a significant role in the CO2 abatement solution in the short term.?
?Lack of information about the wind resource is one of the biggest barriers to global adoption of wind energy?not the technological ability to harness it,?explained Ken Westrick, CEO of 3TIER , an independent provider of global renewable energy assessment and forecasting.
The organisation has unveiled a 5-km resolution world wind map, showing global wind resource and its spatial and temporal availability. ?This map is intended to accelerate the adoption of wind energy development by identifying the value of the wind resource at any location around the world. It will allow developers, financiers and governments to identify the best regions in the world for wind energy development?, he said.
