Seventy-five nations including Germany, India, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates launched last week the world’s first multinational organization dedicated solely to promoting renewable energy worldwide.
From Berlin to Abu Dhabi and beyond, people are “going green” using innovative technology and promoting climate-conscious legislation in an attempt to save both the global economy and the environment, indicates a cross-section of international news coverage compiled by the global nonprofit media organization Link TV.
Similarly, two studies released recently argue that worldwide efforts to overcome the current economic crisis will require more spending on green industry, which will in turn help slow and possibly reverse the impending climate crisis.
Statistical analysis in the report “Green Jobs: Working for People and the Environment,” by the environmental think tank Worldwatch, shows that nearly 200 million people in the world currently have no work to make their ends meet. In China alone, however, renewable energy technologies employ no less than 1 million people in the wind, solar, and biomass industries. Meanwhile, retrofitting Europe’s residential buildings in order to cut carbon emissions by 75 percent could create more than 2 million new jobs in the next two decades, states the report.
The “explosive” growth in the United States of wind, solar, and geothermal energy means increased energy security, stabilized energy prices, and thousands of new jobs, writes environmental expert Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute. The new U.S. administration has also proved a source of hope for environmentalists and the unemployed alike. According to his Web site, President Barack Obama will “help create 5 million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next 10 years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.” Obama has also pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 and ensure that 25 percent of all electricity consumed in the United States comes from renewable sources by 2025.
