Climate: Are Renewable Energy Targets Counterproductive?

What are renewable energy targets for? Are they effective in fighting global warming? Let's try to understand.

With a view to more sustainable development and a more active fight against global warming, more and more players are setting targets for the use of renewable energies.

50% renewable energies by 2050, 100% renewable energies by 2040… More and more companies or States are setting themselves this type of objective. In France, for example, the Energy Transition Law sets a target of 32% renewable energies in gross final electricity consumption by 2030.

But what are these goals for? Are they effective in conducting a policy to fight against global warming? Not sure. A paper published in Nature Climate Change by researchers at the University of Queensland believes that such targets could even be counterproductive. Explanations.

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Renewable energies: not all green

Renewable energies include sources of energy production (electricity, heat, fuel) based on virtually non-exhaustible resources. These are wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, but also biofuels or renewable thermal energies such as geothermal energy.

These energy sources are generally low-carbon, because they make it possible to produce energy with less recourse to fossil fuels, the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions of human origin. As such, they are an essential tool in the fight against global warming.

For this reason, more and more players are setting themselves the goal of reaching a certain threshold of renewable energies for their energy consumption or production.