New podcast: What does the wind industry want from COP28?
New podcast: What does the wind industry want from COP28? | Windpower Monthly
Starting on 30 November and running for nearly two weeks the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP28, will bring together world leaders, business and NGOs to discuss the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions caused by fossil fuels - but will global policymakers act decisively?
This year’s conference, to be held in the United Arab Emirates, will include a global stock take of the progress made since the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, in which countries pledged to reduce carbon emissions and step up the roll out of renewable energy in order to limit the potentially devastating effects of climate change – but how far off-course has the world drifted since the agreement was signed?
In the 19th episode of the Wind Power Podcast; Ben Backwell, chief executive of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), Morten Dyrholm, group senior vice president of communications and public affairs at turbine manufacturer Vestas, and James Theobolds, director at engineering and sustainability consultancy Arup, come together to discuss what the wind industry will be calling for from world leaders at COP28.
Is the stated aim of tripling renewable energy deployment by 2030 possible, let along realistic? How far off course has the world drifted since the Paris Agreement and has the time now come to override objections to the installation of wind power from the public in the face of the existential threat to human life on Earth?
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This episode was produced by Czarina Deen and Inga Marsden
To listen to previous episodes, click on the links below:
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.