Renewable Energy Gaining Ground

You cannot stop progress. The world is realizing that it cannot rely on fossil fuels forever and that change is necessary. Of course, if you make profit off said fossil fuels – if you sell old-fashioned cars, or oil, or coal, that change spells disaster for you. For companies manufacturing and selling things like solar panels, efficient lighting and high-tech home insulation, that change is a potential miracle.

This is the result of this weekend’s climate deal in Paris, which commits 195 countries to reducing pollution in order to head off dangerous climate change.

Global governments and companies are counting the costs and benefits from the agreement, which calls for wholesale transformations of energy, transportation, and dozens of other lines of business. Fossil-fuel producers and countries that depend on them face massive, costly disruption. Players in up-and-coming industries like renewable power and energy efficiency are looking at an unprecedented opportunity.

The Paris pact, which also calls for a review of ever-tightening pledges every five years, is the most significant global climate agreement ever, outstripping the 1997 Kyoto Accord in its scope and ambition. Along with Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and dozens of other top political leaders, the summit that produced it attracted hundreds of large companies eager to influence or understand negotiations that could deeply affect their future business models.

The deal will likely accelerate investments in technologieslike renewable energy and electric vehicles -- especially if more countries join the European Union and parts of North America in imposing a price or taxon carbon. The United Nations estimates upward of $1 trillion a year inspending is required to de-carbonize the global economy and prevent temperature rises scientists say could flood coastal cities, disrupt agriculture, and destroy ecosystems.