Shaping Geopolitics through Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is generation and rapid increase in installation capacities across the world. Harvesting renewable energies does not deplete the resources or create environmental impacts at a minimal level. In fact, in many instances, the only environmental cost is that of constructing the infrastructure needed to harvest, store, and transmit the resultant energy.

As the effects of anthropologic climate change i.e., climate change caused by human activity start to manifest, renewables are at the forefront of most geopolitical discourse. There is no escaping the simple fact that our civilization requires electricity to function but self-sustainability is at most needed in regular activities.

Several countries around the world are dependent upon importing energy from other nations in order to meet their requirements. 

International relations are more finely tuned than ever to the energy and power markets. The unstoppable march of climate change is bringing with it a growing awareness that in the not-so-distant future we could conceivably find ourselves having trouble generating enough energy around the world.

Some studies suggest that if global warming continues at its current rate then within 50 years parts of Arabia and the Middle East will experience prolonged bouts (Meaning for "bouts": A contest or fight, Something lasting a short period)  of life-threatening heat. These regions are important for energy and oil resources, not only that but there are also concerns about the impact that semi-regular environmental disasters in the form of extreme heat waves could have on regional stability.

COP Meetings for the framework, Action plan, Goals and Targets . . .

One of the major issues that dominate the progression of international relations for years to come is that of how the nations and the international community as a whole respond to the challenges posed by "climate change". In April 2016, the overwhelming majority of nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement, which committed them to ambitious goals aimed at keeping the global temperature increase from the industrial revolution until the end of the century below two degrees centigrade and these COP meetings took place every year across the world conducting in different countries, setting the goals and monitoring the implementation and its impacts. 

Moving Towards Energy Independence

Geopolitics throughout the 20^th century was largely shaped by energy considerations and geopolitics was responsible for the most dramatic swings in the price of crude oil. Even today, we see oil prices being lowered by traditional producers in an attempt to curtail the United States’ ever-increasing market share. Today, it seems that the balance of power in international relations favours countries that are investing in clean, renewable energy sources and many analysts predict that this trend will only increase as time goes on.

Currently, a lot of developed nations are dependent on others to import the necessary fossil fuels to meet their energy requirements. However, as energy technology improves, we are rapidly approaching a world where nations can take energy independence for granted. Energy independence, when a country requires no outside help to generate enough energy to satisfy demand, has tremendous benefits for any country that can achieve it. However, the wider implications on the geopolitical landscape are hard to predict.

In Eastern and Central Europe, there are growing anxieties about the amount of influence Russia wields owing to its monopoly on natural gas supply to EU continent. Consequently, there is a concerted effort throughout the EU to develop more efficient renewable energy technologies that will allow states lacking in natural resources to generate their energy needs from solar, wind, hydro, Biomass, Hydrogen, and other alternative energy sources.

Economic Power Shift 

Some of the effects of renewable energy generation, while broadly beneficial and successful at combating global warming, are unpredictable in their consequences. 

Regional Power . . .

If nation-states are currently economically and or politically beholden to their bigger neighbours because of energy needs, to achieve desired energy independence, it could have a drastic effect on regional balances of power. While we can look at current trends in renewable energy generation and extrapolate from them how much progress countries are likely to make in the near future, we can’t predict upcoming innovations might offer new ways of harvesting efficient energy gains. Responding rapidly and proportionately to localized shifts in power will require cooperation between the world’s nations and will likely feature heavily in geopolitics.

Aggressive Scientific Innovations needed . . . 

Renewable energy technologies are not only competing against traditional fossil fuel sources, they are also competing against one another, in most countries, we have reached grid parity initially achieved in India with a massive renewable energy shift. This competition is proving healthy as across the globe, various nation-states and private corporations continue to produce important new research and technological breakthroughs, which are moving the world ever closer to reliable, scalable, renewable energy generation.

There is something of a race is to develop nuclear fusion technology. Nuclear fusion is the process by which stars generate their energy, and if we can replicate it on Earth, we will be able to generate as much clean energy as possible.

Global warming is one of the biggest challenges facing by the humanity and it isn’t going away anytime soon. Renewables are represent as one of the best defence, we have against the disastrous effects of climate change.