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Wind energy could cut global warming by up to 0.8 degrees C, says report

Excerpt from news.globallandscapesforum.org

The amount of wind that blows across the planet could fulfill the world’s electricity demand many times over. Yet 63.3 percent of the world’s electricity was still derived from fossil fuels in 2019, mostly from coal and gas, and this contributed significantly to the roughly 33 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emitted that year.

According to a recent study, wind energy could play a more prominent role in averting the climate crisis than it does now. As the world aspires to the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius, the study found that expanding the world’s wind energy generation capacity could reduce global warming by 0.3 to 0.8 degrees Celsius by 2100.

The study also examined wind energy growth trends among the world’s four top greenhouse gas-emitting economies: China, the U.S., the E.U. and India.

Wind energy has grown substantially in the past two decades – the study’s authors determined that wind energy generation capacity grew by around 14 percent annually from 2006 to 2020. But nevertheless, realizing its potential for climate change mitigation would entail a rapid increase in wind energy infrastructure, capitalizing on the resource’s widespread availability and falling installation costs.

 

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