Against the backdrop of the recent climate negotiations in Copenhagen, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) released calculations showing that wind energy alone could achieve up to 65% of the emissions reduction pledged by industrialised countries.

“Wind power is rapidly emerging as a key technology towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient green economy,” says Achim Steiner, United Nations undersecretary-general and United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) executive director, at a joint Unep/GWEC press conference, in Copenhagen.

“A serious and significant deal in Copen-hagen represents a golden opportunity to accelerate its uptake and widen its penetration into many more countries in order to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, generate electricity, get clean energy to those without access to it and boost employment.” The GWEC’s analysis puts into context the degree to which wind power can help achieve the current Annex I pledges in the 2020 timeframe. The pledges, made by, besides others, the US, the European Union, Norway, Japan and Russia, add up to between 13% and 20% of aggregate emissions reduction by 2020.

According to the GWEC’s most ambitious scenario for wind energy development, wind could produce 2 600 TWh of electricity and save 1,5-billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2020. This would represent between 42% and 62% of Annex I pledges.

“These figures tell us two things. Firstly, they show that wind energy alone could contribute a very large share of the emissions reduction under the pledges put forward so far. Secondly, they show how woefully inadequate and lacking in ambition the pledges that have been made to date are,” says GWEC secretary-general Steve Sawyer.

“Efficiency, stopping deforestation and other renewable-energy technologies can also make significant contributions. Much more can be achieved, and much more must be achieved, if we are to avoid dangerous climate change.”

An emissions reduction of 25% to 40% below 1990 levels are required to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. With wind energy and other clean-energy technologies that are available now, this, and more, can be achieved. According to the GWEC, global wind energy alone could contribute 34% of a 25% emissions reduction and 21% of a 40% emissions reduction.

The GWEC document also outlines emissions reduction potentials from wind power in Europe, the US, India and China, concluding that wind power, if properly deployed, can take all these regions a big step towards reaching their climate goals.

“The wind energy sector stands ready to contribute a total of 10-billion tons of carbon dioxide reductions by 2020,” avers Sawyer.

“Industrialised countries can, and must, review their pledges for reduction targets and raise them very substantially, [and must also] assist developing countries in implementing their often ambitious programmes to decarbonise their electricity systems with both public finance and private investment through the carbon markets.”