As part of goals to slow climate change, a senior United Nations official has told Reuters that the world needs to more than double its reliance on renewable energy by 2030. But the drive will need strong backing from the private sector.
“The new goal is to have 30 percent of energy supplies from renewable sources by 2030,” said Kandeh Yumkella, head of the U.N. Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
Around 13% of energy used now comes from renewable sources, including hydro, wind, geothermal and solar power.
The renewables target would add to the United Nation’s drive to widen supplies of electricity to everyone by 2030 and to improve world energy efficiency by 40% by 2030.
According to Yumkella, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would formally launch the 2030 energy goals this year, aiming for adoption by world leaders at a once-a-decade Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, as part of a shift to a green economy.
Last month, a U.N. panel of climate scientists said the world could get up to almost 80% of its energy from renewable sources by 2050, with the right policies to shift from fossil fuels such as oil and coal.
