The eyes of the world are on the United Nations Climate Conference, also known as COP21. Leaders from around the world are gathered in Paris in an effort to combat the effects of climate change. One of the best chances we have to mitigate these harmful effects are renewable technologies.

In the latest issue brief from the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Strategic Foresight Initiative Senior Fellow Robert A. Manning explores the future of adopting renewable energy. The brief goes through the growth of current renewable technologies and identifies various scenarios to understand the winners and losers in this energy revolution.

Continuing long-term trends in renewable technologies point to a steady decline in prices and parallel increases in efficiency by 2035. Solar and wind energy in particular will, at a minimum, provide a substantially larger portion of electricity in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere than they do now. Currently, more than 31 billion tons of CO2 are released worldwide annually from electricity use and transportation; heightened concerns about climate change have been a key driver of the surge in the investment and deployment of renewable energy, and will likely continue to drive innovation in and the adoption of sustainable clean-energy sources into the future. Gradually but inexorably, the world is transforming how it creates and uses energy.

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