Government and financial institutions around the world must pledge to invest at least US$40 billion (€30.6 billion) in renewable energy over the next 12 months as a way of fighting climate change, according to a campaign launched this week by the environmental NGO the WWF.

“We are running out of time,” says Jim Leape, director general of WWF International, launching the campaign Seize Your Power. “We know that if we continue to rely on fossil fuels we will face a future of worsening air pollution and an increasingly inhospitable climate. It is now our collective responsibility to commit to the future we want. We call on political and financial decision-makers to seize their power to make the switch to clean and sustainable renewable energy and end the inertia of coal, oil and gas.”

Anyone and everyone can sign the pledge on the WWF’s website to encourage governments and financial institutions to put their money where their mouth is, and promise greater funds for wind, solar and water power. The campaign will run in 20 countries around the world and be targeted at public finance, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.

Wind energy doesn’t usually see much support from UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph, but this weekend the paper published a story based on National Grid (the UK’s electricity grid operator) evidence proving that wind farms do not need fossil fuel back-up for when the weather is calm.

“The National Grid has studied what actually happens in practice, with explosive, if surprising, results,” the paper said. “Between April 2011 and September 2012…wind produced some 23,700 gigawatt hours (GWh) of power. Only 22 GWh of power from fossil fuels was needed to fill the gaps when the wind didn’t blow. That’s less than a thousandth of the turbines’ output – and, as it happens, less than a tenth of what was needed to back up conventional power stations.”

That statement highlights another perhaps little known fact – fossil fuel power stations do need back-up. A fossil fuelled power station needs to shut down for repairs or maintenance taking many gigawatts of power offline with it.

Lord Sugar

The UK government will vote today on the ‘Energy Bill’ – measures to decide how the UK will structure its energy sector in the future, including a possible 2030 decarbonisation target. The target has been backed by an alliance of 55 energy companies, trade unions, environmental and faith groups – including SSE, RES, Vestas, EDP, Repower, Scottish Renewables and Renewable UK – and, last week UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Edward Davey called on the EU to set an emissions reduction target of 50% by 2030.

Leading business figure and member of the UK House of Lords, Lord Sugar, also backs a decarbonisation target. He said in a letter (‘cutting our carbon would help UK business’, 2 June) published in the Financial Times that “renewables companies have shown they are ready to invest in Britain, but they need to see a commitment from this government that they are serious. To create jobs here, they need real certainty – and that will require a proper “decarbonisation” target in the forthcoming energy bill,” he said.