Global Compact International Yearbook 2013
37
Agenda
an increase in sales of the Toyota Prius hybrids. It became the
bestselling passenger vehicle in the state, selling 60,688 in
2012:
a remarkable 78 percent increase over 2011 sales. There
is a similar pattern with models from other EV manufactur-
ers – there was a phenomenal 286 percent increase in sales
of Nissan’s Leaf EV car in the United States in March 2012
when compared to the same period the year prior.
In many countries, the global $100 billion solar-photovoltaic
(
PV) sector has reached a tipping point and, as a result of
government subsidies and corporate investment, PVs are
becoming competitive with fossil fuels. Many countries,
including Germany, Denmark, Italy, Spain, and parts of
Australia, which have higher electricity prices, have already
reached grid parity – Japan, France, Brazil, and Turkey are
expected to reach parity by 2015, and the MENA region is
close to grid parity. In the United States, solar PV technol-
ogy is expected to reach grid parity for some PV projects in
2014.
Most regions will reach grid parity by 2017 and China
could reach solar power grid parity in most of its regions as
early as 2015 - 2016.
In just six years, installed solar-PV capacity across the globe
has increased 1,200 percent, from 5.4 gigawatts (GW) in 2005
to more than 65 GW in 2011. In Australia alone, there are
1
million households with solar PV systems now installed– in
2008
there were just 20,000. With current growth rates, solar
energy could be providing 10 percent of the total global power
generation by the end of the decade. In the United States,
SolarCity, SunRun, and Sungevity have made solar panels af-
fordable for California’s residents with their unique business
model – they let customers install solar facilities and either
lease the panels or buy the produced power at a fixed rate.
SunRun alone has been installing $1 million worth in solar
panels every day since January 2011.
LED (light-emitting diodes) street lighting is another example
of a low-carbon technology that can help state and municipal
governments to reduce carbon emissions, improve public infra-
structure, and lower economic expenditures. At the Rio+20 UN
Global Compact Corporate Sustainability Forum in June 2012,
The Climate Group published Lighting the Clean Revolution:
The Rise of LED Street Lighting and What It Means for Cities,
which presents the findings of an independent, two-and-a-
half-year global pilot of LED lamps in 15 separate trials across
12
cities, including New York, London, Kolkata, and Sydney.
The conclusion of the trials found that LED street lighting can
generate energy savings as high as 85 percent – a valuable
savings for public administrations in the current economic
environment. As a consequence of these high energy savings,
670
million tons of greenhouse gas emissions are saved every
year. As well as the economic and environmental benefits,
the report also analyzed the social benefits attributed to LED
street lighting. Surveys in Kolkata, London, Sydney, and To-
ronto indicated that citizens preferred LED lighting, with 68
percent to 90 percent of respondents endorsing the city-wide
rollout of the technology. As a result of the pilot’s findings,
The Climate Group and Philips, the report’s co-author, are
calling for a new international low-carbon lighting standard
that will see all new public lighting – both street lighting
and public building lighting – use LED as of 2015, with the
aim of all public lighting being LED by 2020.
It is clear that we are making progress with the scale-up of
established clean technologies and emerging clean-tech in-
novations. But the scale-up of these technologies must be
accelerated and it must happen now. The Clean Revolution
offers us the opportunity to change the economic and social
future of our societies. We cannot, and must not, allow our-
selves to miss this crucial tipping point in our development.
The Clean Revolution is a positive, inspiring, and achievable
vision of tomorrow that answers the economic and political
imperatives of today. It is indeed the only feasible path to a
smarter, better, more prosperous future. For all.
Mark Kenber is CEO of
The Climate Group.
Climate Change