Liebreich: A Large Number of Small Steps Can a Low-Carbon Revolution Make
By Michael Liebreich Chief Executive Bloomberg New Energy Finance The third Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit, which took place this month, was a great opportunity to take a step back from day-to-day concerns, consider how much progress the clean energy sector has made in the last decade, and reflect on where it is likely to be in 10 years’ time. The next 10 years take us to 2020 – a milestone year, heavily festooned with policy goals around the world.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance League Table Results 2010
Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Clean Energy League Tables are the most transparent and comprehensive benchmarks for identifying active clean energy investors, project financiers, investment banks and law firms.
McCrone: Will Clean Energy Ever Get its own Megacap Stocks?
By Angus McCrone Chief Editor Bloomberg New Energy Finance Take Apple, Intel and Microsoft. Or Cisco, Google and Amazon. Or China Mobile, Vodafone, and NTT DoCoMo. Whenever a young, fast growing sector comes of age, it spawns a handful of giant global companies that becomes staples in the portfolio of the general investor.
VIP Comment: A Goldilocks Year for Clean Energy: Our 10 Predictions for 2010
By Michael Liebreich Chief Executive Bloomberg New Energy Finance So here we are in 2010. Last year finished with the disappointment of the much-hyped COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen, but we should not forget that we have seen a period of huge accomplishments for the clean energy industry. Here are my favourite milestones from the last decade: 1. World renewable energy generating capacity exceeds 280GW and outstrips the IEA’s 2003 forecast for 2020, by 2009; 2. The EU generates over 15% of its electricity from renewable sources, with Spain, Germany and Denmark leading the world (excluding hydro power); 3. Dramatic falls in the cost of all clean energy technologies, bringing many of them within spitting distance of fossil-based power; 4. Solar power becomes cheaper than kerosene and diesel for rural electrification, as witnessed by the success of Grameen Shakti, Selco and others; 5. Over half of the light-vehicle transportation fuel needs of Brazil, the world’s eighth largest economy, are met by biofuels; 6. Hybrid cars are commonplace on our streets, opening the way to the electrification of transportation; 7. The world’s first fully functioning large-scale carbon market, the EU-ETS, is successfully set up and has a measurable impact in reducing emissions; 8. Investment in clean energy grows by a factor of 10, to around $150bn per annum; 9. Investment in renewable generating capacity for the first time outstrips fossil fuel and nuclear generating capacity combined; 10. First Solar becomes the first clean energy company to break into the S 500.
US MAC Curve: A fresh look at the costs of reducing US carbon emissions
Executive Summary New analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance on the cost of reducing co2 emissions in the US shows that some previous estimates of abatement costs have probably been too optimistic. To achieve a 17% reduction on 2005 levels by 2020 entirely within the US would make use of some "early wins" in eneryg efficiency and land-based measures, but would the require more fundamental changes to the power and transport sectors. Overall however, the costs should be affordable and can further be reduced by the use of internation offsets.
WEF Green Investing 2010 Report
Executive Summary In this report, the World Economic Forum provides an update on the status of investment volumes in clean energy and an overview of the different technologies that will contribute significantly to a future low-carbon energy infrastructure, as well as the key enablers that are required in order to allow those technologies to get to scale. The report also highlights developments in the carbon markets and global negotiations (in Copenhagen and beyond) which affect clean energy and greenhouse gas emissions as a whole. This report provides an analytical framework to evaluate 35 different types of policy mechanisms designed to unleash private capital to facilitate the shift to a low-carbon economy.
Liebreich: Clean Energy’s Though Year – What We Got Right and What We Got Wrong
By Michael Liebreich Chairman and CEO New Energy Finance This is the final VIP Brief of 2009, when we get to look back at the events of the last year.
Liebreich: Copenhagen Is Dead – Long Live Copenhagen
By Michael Liebreich Chairman and CEO New Energy Finance Last month, speaking of December’s COP 15 negotiations in Copenhagen, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said we had 50 days to save the world and “no Plan B”. At the recent UN Climate Summit in New York, the talk was of urging politicians to Seal the Deal. But now it is official – there is no Deal to Seal. Although there may be a “politically binding” deal, the world will have to stay legally unsaved – at least for the time being.
Liebreich: Inlfation, Deflation and the Implications for Clean Energy
By Michael Liebreich Chairman and CEO New Energy Finance As investors around the world in all sectors – not just clean energy and carbon – try to work out how to play the recovery, they are facing their deepest quandary for decades. Will “quantitative easing”, near-zero interest rates and spiralling government deficits result in a nasty bout of inflation, or will record consumer debt burdens, rapid corporate and bank deleveraging, enforced fiscal responsibility and over-capacity in exporting economies sink the world into a deflationary spiral? It seems almost foolish to believe that the economy can bounce back from its near-death experience and pull off a “Goldilocks” recovery – neither too hot nor too cold. Yet in the clean energy sector, that appears to be exactly what people are hoping for: a return to the pre-2008 “norm”, with low inflation, fast economic growth and buoyant consumer spending and bank credit.
McCrone: Copenhagen – Countries May Be Starting to See the Wood for the Trees
By Angus McCrone Chief Editor New Energy Finance It is bad enough getting older without actually having to watch the seconds drain away. For that reason, I suggest not looking at the website of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where a digital clock remorselessly counts down the days, hours, minutes and seconds left before the Copenhagen conference on 7-18 December.