Renewable Energy and Sustainable Development

Renewable-Energy-and-Sustainable-Development

Abstract

Societies around the world are on the verge of a profound and urgently necessary transformation in the way they produce and use energy. This shift is moving the world away from the consumption of fossil fuels toward cleaner, renewable forms of energy. The rapid deployment of renewable energy has been driven mainly by a wide range of objectives (drivers), which include advancing economic development, improving energy security, enhancing energy access and mitigating climate change. While such presumed benefits are widely cited as key drivers in political and energy debates, specific, documented evidence of such benefits remains rather limited for reasons including a lack of adequate conceptual frameworks, methodological challenges, and limited access to relevant data.

This paper identifies some of the remaining questions relating to the implications of aiming for 100% renewable energy, with the aim to provide a basis for subsequent development of a conceptual framework for future work on this topic.