An image from the Wake-up Call app

The global temperature is rising. Freak weather events are multiplying. Climate change is happening.

And yet governments are giving $6 to polluting fossil fuels for every $1 dollar that goes to clean renewables.

World leaders must move now to renewable, clean energy sources like wind energy.  And with the new Global Wind Day app you can tell them to do it and why.

On 17 and 18 June, leaders of the governments of the world’s eight wealthiest countries are meeting in the UK. The leaders of these countries, such as Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and François Hollande, are ultimately responsible for the continuing and growing support for dirty fossil fuels given by their governments. Such subsidies are up nearly 30% from 2010 to $523bn in 2011 (IEA, 2012) compared to $88bn for renewables.

The reason fossil fuel firms are not trying to reduce their carbon emissions could be due to uncertainty on climate and energy policy, suggests the Economist in a recent editorial.

The paper cites cuts in renewable energy support schemes as one of the elements influencing investors. “Companies are betting that government climate policies will fail.”

This is exactly what EWEA has been warning for many months:

“The financial and economic crisis has provoked a wave of uncertainty across the European Union since 2010, with national governments making damaging retroactive changes to policies and regulations for wind energy.”

The Economist added that in mid-April the European Parliament voted against attempts to shore up Europe’s emissions trading system, the world’s largest carbon market, against collapse.

Thomas Becker, EWEA CEO.

Commenting on the call from BusinessEurope Director General Markus J Beyrer on EU energy policy, European Wind Energy Association CEO Thomas Becker had this to say;

It sounds a little old fashioned when BusinessEurope claims that fighting climate change is not compatible with cost-competitiveness and security of supply. What have they been doing for the last 15 years? What planet were they on?

The main problem of the energy situation today in Europe is the massive subsidies – still in 2013 – going to fossil fuels and nuclear.

If that was corrected and with a properly functioning electricity market there would be no discussion of what choice policy makers would make for the energy mix.

But even without such a correction, wind energy is already cheaper than nuclear, and in an increasing number of locations already cost competitive with new gas and coal.

By Tuuliki Kasonen, Estonian Wind Power Association

Janne Põlluaas is an Estonian woman who has had a passion for photography and nature since spending her childhood summers at a beach called Laulasmaa, a 30 minute drive from the Estonian capital, Tallinn. As a child Janne would sit with her father in the darkroom and watch the pictures develop, feeling that photography must be magic. Today, Janne is a landscape architect and a garden decorator, an occupation which allows her to regularly observe the beauty of nature.

Maria van der Hoeven, IEA

The continued expansion of wind power, coupled with a decrease in costs for the emissions-free electricity-generating technology, was one of the few positive notes in a new International Energy Agency (IEA) report on efforts to create a low-carbon world.

The IEA report, which was presented in India last week to the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), said that wind power capacity grew by 19% from 2011 to 2012 despite ongoing economic problems.

In its report, Tracking Clean Energy Progress, the IEA described onshore wind power as “one of the most cost-competitive renewable energy sources” and noted generation from 2000 to 2011 increased by 400 TWh (+27% per year), reaching an estimated 435 TWh in 2011.

By 2017, the report said, onshore wind generation is expected to reach almost 1,000 TWh.