A new report has found that, in the long term, we can limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. While this may make it sound like we are on the right path to preventing dangerous climate change – scientists say the rise should be kept to below 2°C – the emphasis on the ‘long term’ slightly distorts the picture since long term refers to the period after the year 2100.

More importantly we should note that the report, published by the Met Office Hadley Centre, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, says while we can achieve a 1.5°C rise, this is highly likely to involve “temporarily overshooting the temperature goal for up to 100 years”.

Rémi Gruet, Regulatory Affairs Advisor for EWEA, explains that such an overshoot could trigger the melting of permafrost soils: “Thawing soils would release methane – a gas more than 20 times more harmful to the climate than CO2,” Gruet says.

What we need now are early and strong emission reductions, he says; an opinion backed up by the report. To avoid the temperature overshoot, emissions reductions must begin now with the technologies we have available and are proven to work.

Wind power creates sustainable energy, spurs on the economy by providing new jobs and helps reduce stresses on the environment, Stephen Molnar, the mayor of Tillsonburg, Ontario, said during a Global Wind Day tour of the Erie Shores Wind Farm.

“Actually, it’s been an extremely valuable experience,” Molnar said in a telephone interview with the European Wind Energy Association.
Molnar and other politicians were part of a tour Tuesday of the four-year-old Erie Shores facility in southern Ontario, which is described as being one of the largest wind power facilities in Canada, representing nearly 3% of the nation’s installed wind capacity.

Organised to celebrate the second annual Global Wind Day, the tour was proudly hosted by the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA), which quoted in a press release another local mayor as saying her nearby municipality has benefited greatly from wind energy.

“We sought this opportunity to bring positive change to our region, and have benefited from job creation and increased tax revenues, new tourism and our local farmers now have another source of income,” Lynn Acre, mayor of Bayham, which is home to the Erie Shores Wind Farm, was quoted as saying.

The press release also noted CanWEA President Robert Hornung said it is important to celebrate Global Wind Day in Canada.
“Wind energy is now being produced in every province and we expect wind energy’s rapid growth in Canada to continue with production quadrupling in the next five years,” Hornung said. “With its unparalleled wind resource, large hydroelectric capacity, strong manufacturing base and linkages to the US market, this country has an incredible opportunity to maximize the economic, industrial development, and environmental benefits associated with wind energy.”

A growing number of analysts in Canada, which is the second largest nation in the world and has a population of more than 33 million people, are promoting emissions-free wind energy as a solution to the country’s need for increasing amounts of green electricity.

According to the federal government, fossil fuel combustion is the main source of three major air pollution problems — climate change, acid deposition and urban smog. Canada ranks 27th out of 29 OECD nations in terms of energy use per capita, the government says. Canadians annually consume 6.19 tonnes of oil equivalent per capita. This is almost double the OECD average of 3.18 tonnes of oil equivalent per capita, and more than five times the world average.

You have to think that the wind energy industry has entered a new level of public acceptance when a popular American company which specialises in financial information publishes a story promoting the environmental and economic benefits of the emissions-free sector.

In a story headlined “5 green jobs for saving the planet,” Bankrate, Inc. says becoming a wind power salesperson is increasingly appealing to many people, especially considering that the Internal Revenue Service provides tax credits for up to 30% of renewable energy systems.

“Most people want to go green. But if you are going green and saving money at the same time, it’s a really good incentive,” says Loree Long in the story by Bankrate, which describes itself as the Web’s leading aggregator of financial rate information. According to the story, Long, co-owner of wind-turbine sales company Win-Gen Power in Weatherford, Texas, says she and husband Ted, who have installed a wind turbine on their own property, sell an average of one system per month.

The other green jobs identified as helping to save the planet include being a green teacher, a green civil and/or mechanical engineer, a home energy auditor, and a weatherization expert.

“At a time when many career paths seem to be losing ground, green jobs seem to be on the upswing,” the story notes, adding a study released last year by the U.S. Green Building Council estimates that environmentally-friendly construction projects will add 7.9 million green jobs and $554 billion to the American economy by 2012.

Long’s story is yet again more proof that the global wind power industry is reaching new levels of popularity because it can simultaneously provide increasing amounts of green electricity for a growing world, provide tens of thousands of well-paying new jobs and help mitigate environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels.

Taken together, wind power is indeed helping to save the planet.

As Europe has already successfully experienced, it was inevitable that other parts of the world would soon catch on to the huge potential that offshore wind energy can provide.

Worth noting then, is news that China’s seemingly insatiable appetite for green electricity resulted in a recent announcement that the sea off eastern Jiangsu province will soon boast the nation’s first group of commercial offshore wind farms.

China Daily reported Shi Lishan, deputy director of the new energy department under the National Energy Administration, said the four wind power projects include two near-shore 300-MW plants and two 200-MW facilities built on tidal flats.

“Construction of offshore wind power projects will be one focus of China’s wind power industry in the future,” said Shi, adding public bidding for the four projects will start in May. “As the country boasts rich offshore wind energy resources, China has great potential in this field.”

In India, offshore wind is also front and centre in the Economic Times, with a report that the nation’s long coastline, low installation costs and readily available raw materials are attracting the interest of major international energy companies looking for expansion opportunities.

US President Barack Obama was promoting wind power on Earth Day. Saying that Americans have worked hard to clean up the environment in the past 40 years, Obama said there is still much to do.

As a result and calling it a “historic step,” he said the Department of the Interior is announcing for the first time the leasing of federal waters to projects such as wind power facilities and other clean technologies that can generate green electricity, especially off the east coast of the US.

“It is estimated that if we fully pursue our potential for wind energy on land and offshore, wind can generate as much as 20% of our electricity by 2030 and create . . . 250,000 jobs in the process, jobs that pay well and provide good benefits,” Obama said.

“It’s a win-win. It’s good for the environment and great for the economy,” he said.