Why Renewable Energy Matters

If the current predicament of humanity was the plot of an action movie, then right now would be the turning point of the story, where the hero makes a decision that leads to either success or failure. 

It’s no exaggeration to say that we are in a race against time to save the Earth’s ecology and protect humanity from the worst effects of climate change. To make matters worse, the IPCC’s most recent report detailed that global emissions are still rising. Without drastic change and more aggressive planning, there is no way to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which cannot be exceeded if we are to prevent the most severe climate catastrophes.

Luckily, there is still time to make changes that would radically limit greenhouse gas emissions and the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Energy accounts for over 73% of emissions

Most critical to our success is a shift in our power grid from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Over 73% of global emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels to power the world.

And while we've seen some trends in the right direction—from making cars and air conditioning run on electricity to large-scale climate solutions like green hydrogen, desalination of water, and carbon dioxide removal—these solutions all demand electricity themselves, making it more important than ever to clean up the grid. Renewable energy is the largest lever we have to fight climate change.

Everything we need to shift the power grid already exists; in one hour, the sun strikes the Earth with enough radiation to power the world for a full year. The technology needed to capture sunlight, convert it into energy, and store it for cloudy days is readily available and highly efficient. Now is the time to harness the natural energy available to us by rapidly expanding the scale of renewable energy feeding clean energy into the power grid.

Companies are stepping up

Increasingly, businesses are not waiting for utilities or the government to clean up the grid and are seeking ways to decarbonize the energy they use themselves. While installing onsite solar might be the ideal, not all companies have the up-front money (or the right roof).

That’s where Evergreen comes in. We’ve developed a way to build offsite solar projects that clean up the grid and help companies mitigate their carbon footprints. We’re creating a platform for companies to help fund building new solar farms, and in turn receive the credits needed to meet their decarbonization goals. And with Evergreen, the credits are coming from new projects that clean up the grid and which wouldn’t have been possible without the sponsoring company’s support. That’s true additionality and real impact.

Solving climate change is 90+% mitigation

You might be thinking, “Hey, this all sounds great, but we already have the infrastructure in place for fossil fuels, and with carbon capture technology, why can’t we just pull carbon out of the air?”

The answer is simple - it’s not that simple. Relying on carbon dioxide removal technology while still pumping carbon into the air with fossil fuels is like eating a 100,000-calorie diet based solely on corn dogs and telling yourself you’ll compensate by running 3 miles per day. The idea that we can continue emitting greenhouse gasses because there is a technology that will someday maybe magically suck it out of the sky can reduce our sense of urgency and further delay action.

Currently, carbon removal technology sucks an infinitesimally small amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, and even by the most optimistic accounts, will remove no more than 10% of carbon from the atmosphere by 2050. The technology is incredibly expensive, inefficient, and may prove impossible to scale. Worse, the most promising methods of carbon removal actually use a great deal of energy themselves (which better be renewable, or it’s just making things worse!). 

Evergreen makes it easy

Rather than banking on carbon removal to reach their net-zero goals, companies can achieve true neutrality by investing in Evergreen solar fields that replace the need for fossil fuels and guarantee full emissions reductions. 

Rapidly replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy is an essential step that will lead to a happier ending of the climate movie. By investing in solar technology, our hero can ride happily into the sunset – which is also powering the grid.

Learn more at www.ever.green.