Energy Leader Today/ Cheryl Kaften: Bank of America Joins Energy Commission Calling for $15 Trillion in Energy Cuts

Energy Leader Today

Bank of America Joins Energy Commission Calling for $15 Trillion in Energy Cuts

May 1, 2017 by Cheryl Kaften   

Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Saint-Gobain are two of the companies that have joined – and are funding – the new Energy Transitions Commission; the group, made up mostly of energy companies and equipment suppliers, has released a report that calls for countries worldwide to spend close to $750 billion a year over the next two decades to boost green energy deployment and energy efficiency. The report, Better Energy, Greater Prosperity, says the world must pay a $15 trillion price tag to limit the future of global warming. Carbon emissions must be reduced by half by 2014 with further cuts thereafter to achieve the Paris climate objective – limiting global warming to well below 2°C, the group, Energy Transitions Commission, says.

The report comes just as the Trump Administration is considering whether or not to stay party to the Paris agreement, which went into effect in 2016. European countries and energy companies have been pressuring the White House to stay a party to Paris.

To meet that goal, ETC claims the world needs “investment in renewables and other low-carbon technologies some $6 trillion higher ($300 billion per year); while the largest required increases – of nearly $9 trillion ($450 billion per year) – will be in more efficient energy saving equipment and buildings.”

Concurrently, the report claims, fossil fuel investment would need to be cut $3.7 trillion – and that’s on top of fundamentally altering global economic systems to make green energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels in some parts of the world by 2035.

The group says an “explicit, predictably rising, forward price curve for carbon, resulting from policy – reaching approximately $50 per ton in the 2020s and rising to around $100 per ton in the 2030s – is essential to drive decarbonization beyond power, to reinforce regulatory-driven improvements in energy productivity, and to prevent falling fossil fuels prices from undermining the pace of the energy transition.”

The group says its goal is to make sure the world’s energy needs are met and that our energy systems become cleaner to “support long-term prosperity,” adding that the energy decisions of the next 15 years will determine whether both of these objectives can be met.



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