Energy security vs Renewable energy By Ella Williams Recently there has been an increased awareness of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change recently. Rallies have been organised, petitions have been signed, articles have been written, all in the hope to secure a greener future. Countries have begun discussing these issues and developing solutions for the future, most recently at COP26 in Glasgow. A key part of the solution is making the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. However, like many things, this change has its costs.
Despite the massive problems caused by greenhouse gas emmissions from fossil fuels, the developing world relies on cheap, unsustainable, and damaging ways to create energy. This is because their economies cannot afford the high cost of renewable energies. These countries need a constant and cheap, energy supply to enable their development, as energy supply has a direct impact on a country’s development. When a country has less energy than they need they are in energy poverty.
Britain, as a wealthy, western country hasn’t always felt the full impact of climate change and as a country we can sometimes forget the fact that people in the developing world are suffering due to climate change caused by our energy resource carelessness. It is poorer developing countries, those who largely rely on local primary industry for jobs, income, and food security (e.g., farming, mining etc), that are most impacted by drastic changes in weather. The graph below shows the frequency of extreme weather events, you can see that they have almost doubled on numbers since the early 2000’s.
There are several ways for developing countries to switch to renewable energy sources, and many of them involve support from developed countries. One economic strategy is to accelerate investment in renewable energies, which lowers the price and allows developing countries to catch up with developed countries use of renewable energies. Another option 8
