Renewable energy investment still insufficient

Renewable energy investment has been constantly decreasing since reaching record $318 billion in 2011. Bloomberg reports that in 2013 there was 12% decrease compared to previous year at the $254 billion. If this trend continues, this won't be enough to halt climate change and prevent the global temperature increase of two degrees Celsius.

The billionaire bankers gathered in the United Nations at the conference hosted by Ceres where they discussed the possible ways to increase renewable energy investment in years to come. They have concluded that renewable energy investment must double by 2020 and double again to $1 trillion by 2030 if world is to successfully fend of the threat of two degrees temperature increase.

The numbers don't lie but they might look bleaker than they really are, for instance solar energy technologies have been rapidly dropping in prices meaning that more solar energy is now being generated with fewer dollars invested. Also, these numbers do not include majority of energy-efficiency measures, fuel-efficiency gains or expanded public transportation.

However, the investment into clean energy sources will still need to rise rapidly in order to avoid worst climate change scenario.

This conference concluded that the best way to increase investment is to enable easier financing. Among their recommendations of how to achieve easy financing were: increasing the percentage of pension funds to at least five percent of their portfolios, increase scrutiny of companies that are major carbon emitters, and focus on  bonds and asset-backed securities (the introduction of so called green bonds).