One of the arguments made against the investment required to lower the emissions of greenhouse gasses from mankind's activities is that this money could be better spent on aid and development for poorer countries.
"Climate change is benign, or not happening, or not due to human causes. Hence, investment in sustainable power generation is a waste of money." (noise of head being inserted into sand).
Ah! But the same sustainable power-generation technologies will be easier to roll-out to developing nations as they are scalable and promote distributed generation of power where it is needed, allowing access to energy and therefore better sanitation and health care. Many developing nations have natural resources such as sunlight that will enable sustainable generation where investment in large centralised power generation facilities would be prohibitively costly.
Furthermore, in those countries that have a lot of sun and a lot of empty space like deserts, solar power could see them becoming energy producers and exporters, massively benefiting their economies. The Desertec project is one example of this.
So investment in sustainable power generation and green, more efficient technology is actually one of the keys to how the developing world can develop economically. The fact that the world they will be developing in is capable of sustaining life will be a big plus point too.
Stitch that, climate change deniers!
Monday, 16 November 2009
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