Oil And New Energy

Green Energy’s $10 Trillion Revolution Faces Oil Crash Test

Akshat Rathi (w/Ewa Krukowska and Laura Millan Lombrana), March 9, 2020 (Bloomberg News)

“…Some $1.2 trillion has been poured into renewable energy, and global electric vehicle sales reached 2 million last year. Bloomberg NEF expects as much as $10 trillion poured into clean energy by 2050…[The Paris agreement and the environment movement have shaped] politics from Germany to India…[The Saudi Arabia-Russia oil price war looks] like the major oil-producing nations reasserting their supremacy but] may prove to be another step in a longer-term trend toward ending oil’s power…The price of a barrel of oil remains an important economic indicator…[But it may be overtaken by] the imperative to combat global warming…Oil’s fall to [near $30/barrel] has major implications for addressing climate change. Low prices incentivize more use of oil; it squeezes the budgets of oil companies, putting clean-energy projects in doubt; and some governments feel pressured to prop up struggling oil companies. All that drives up emissions, which is bad news for global warming…

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…[But] if low prices are sustained this time, there might be big positives for fighting climate change…Renewable energy is a more mature industry…[It has attracted big investors while] oil exploration is becoming less viable economically, with an increased risk that even those projects that go ahead no longer yield good returns and with worries about stranded assets growing...[A number of large investors have come together] to demand companies put sustainability at the heart of their business models, and that isn’t likely to change…[Low oil prices offer one reason] to end fossil-fuel subsidies or to raise taxes on consumption of fossil fuels…[Some of the money can be] diverted to renewable-energy subsidies…” click here for more

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