1.4 Opportunities, barriers, and issues
The major global energy challenges are securing energy supply to meet growing demand, providing everybody with access to energy services and curbing energy’s contribution to climate change. For developing countries, especially the poorest, energy is needed to stimulate production, income generation and social development, and to reduce the serious health problems caused by the use of fuel wood, charcoal, dung and agricultural waste. For industrialized countries, the primary reasons to encourage RE include emission reductions to mitigate climate change, secure energy supply concerns and employment creation. RE can open opportunities for addressing these multiple environmental, social and economic development dimensions, including adaptation to climate change. [1.4, 1.4.1]
Some form of renewable resource is available everywhere in the world, for example, solar radiation, wind, falling water, waves, tides and stored ocean heat or heat from the Earth. Furthermore, technologies exist that can harness these forms of energy. While the opportunities [1.4.1] seem great, there are barriers [1.4.2] and issues [1.4.3] that slow the introduction of RE into modern economies. [1.4]
Opportunities can be defined as circumstances for action with the attribute of a chance character. In the policy context that could be the anticipation of additional benefi ts that may go along with the deployment of RE but that are not intentionally targeted. These include four major opportunity areas: social and economic development; energy access; energy security; and climate change mitigation and the reduction of environmental and health impacts. [1.4.1, 9.2–9.4]
Globally, per capita incomes as well as broader indicators such as the Human Development Index (HDI) are positively correlated with per capita energy use, and economic growth can be identifi ed as the most relevant factor behind increasing energy consumption in the last decades. Economic development has been associated with a shift from direct combustion of fuels to higher quality electricity. [1.4.1, 9.3.1]
Particularly for developing countries, the link between social and economic development and the need for modern energy services is evident. Access to clean and reliable energy constitutes an important prerequisite for fundamental determinants of human development, contributing, inter alia, to economic activity, income generation, poverty alleviation, health, education and gender equality. Due to their decentralized nature, RE technologies can play an important role in fostering rural development. The creation of (new) employment opportunities is seen as a positive long-term effect of RE in both developed and developing countries. [1.4.1, 9.3.1.4, 11.3.4]
