The growth of green energy
INTERNATIONAL BAR ASSOCIATION – LATIN AMERICAN REGIONAL FORUM UPDATE.
Article by Francisco Lombardi.
Scope
This paper will address the growth in the collection of energy from the use of renewable resources such as solar power, wind power and so on (‘renewable energy resources’ – RERs), and how this growth is being aided by changes in the legal framework and other public policies. The paper will also discuss the current challenges of the industry, and how these can be addressed both by governments and legal practitioners to further the development of RERs.
Increase in the adoption and development of RERs in the past years.
The benefits that come from the adoption of RERs are well-known. Mainly, that they contribute to reducing carbon emissions, and are thus less damaging to the environment than other, more conventional sources of energy such as oil, coal or gas. Additionally, RERs allow nations to diversify their energy supply and become less dependent on any single source of energy, thus hedging any potential risk such as a sudden increase in the price of oil, coal or gas.
The aforementioned benefits in the use of RERs, as well as the perils that come with the overdependence on fossil fuels, have been widespread for decades, notwithstanding the existence of certain scepticism, in some places, with regards to the latter. It is only recently, however, that nations have begun seriously to increase their development of RERs. By way of example, in 2016 alone, the installed renewable energy capacity increased by nine per cent, whereas 62 per cent of all installed electricity in 2016 was renewable energy capacity, a tremendous spike that evidences an ever-increasing trend. Much of this growth has been policy-driven, as the execution of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and of the Paris Agreement in 2015, as a part of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, set forth a worldwide effort to reduce fossil fuels emissions. This, in turn, spurred many nations to expand their efforts towards ‘cleaner’ sources of energy; that is, towards RERs.
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