Statement by EUROSOLAR President Professor Peter Droege on the Paris-exit by the United States
Bonn, 6 June 2017

The most important political imperative in global politics: Europe and the world now must embrace the immediate and radical exit from coal, petroleum, natural gas and uranium

The new EPA director and sworn enemy of the environment Scott Pruitt even denies that he is a climate change denier. He is ideologically and politically opposed to the comprehensive shift to renewable energy - and has seized power in all matters climate change policy. Not only is he hell-bent on demolishing the most important achievements of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, he has reinforced Donald Trump in his decision that the best revenge for the 'European humiliation' - the meetings with NATO, Pope, Merkel, Macron and others - is the theatrical exit from the Paris Climate Accord. The Accord is weak - but now its weakness has become terrifyingly obvious: the Accord will not save us, and working with Trump only accelerates the cynical spiral into the climate abyss.

Europe and the world community now have also politically and existentially no other choice but the immediate and comprehensive entry into the Solar Age: to compensate for the temporary national policy lapse of the US, to build resilience, regional prosperity and resource autonomy, to save the costs for subsidising and importing petroleum, natural gas, coal and uranium, and provide important impulses in technological and industrial innovations and market positions.

"Life after Coal" features EUROSOLAR President Professor Peter Droege and Australian RE expert Ben Rose as they explore international examples where regional economic centers reliant on fossil fuel industries have been renewed and revitalised through a transition to renewable energy and how this may provide a pathway for a renewable energy transition in Collie in Western Australia.

Climate change optimism is justified – a complete transition from carbon to solar and wind power looks practical and affordable within a generation (published in The Guardian on 19 January 2017).

My first book on climate change was published 10 years ago. I looked at how responsible individuals could choose to run their lives to cut their carbon footprint.

jeremy leggettPosted by Jeremy Leggettt on January 8, 2017
on http://www.jeremyleggett.net/

In an era of populist leaders prepared to ignore both the clean energy revolution and the imperatives for it, favouring wilful denial and incumbents that are uneconomic or soon to be, companies and governments with eyes open face much greater leadership responsibilities than they would have in a world unified by respect for the rational. One of their options in this role is the staging of competitions to reward front-running revolutionary innovators. Let me describe two such competitions, under way at the moment, that I am exciting by and involved in.

peter droege esp 2012EVEN IF DONALD TRUMP DOES NOT YET ‚BELIEVE IN’ CLIMATE CHANGE – there are millions of reasons for the fundamental transformation of the world’s energy systems to renewable resources.

Millions of lives have been sacrificed on the altar of fossil fuels – and many million more are doomed if we will not make the switch to renewable energy world-wide. To work for peace means finally leaving the 20th century behind, a century of war and an age of conflict exacerbated by fatal energy systems. It is in our common interest to lay down arms and join in the struggle against our own inherited energy and resource dependencies.