Go green to fight climate and financial crises: Greenpeace

BERLIN, October 27, 2008 (AFP) - Greenpeace unveiled a global action plan Monday it said would not only improve the world's energy mix and stop climate change but also help end the international financial crisis.







Aggressively investing in renewable power generation and energy efficiency could create a 360-billion-dollar (285-billion-euro) industry providing half of the world's electricity, according to the study by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) presented in Berlin.

Sven Teske, Greenpeace energy expert and co-author of the report, said an investment of nine trillion dollars worldwide in renewable energy sources would produce a highly profitable system and slash greenhouse gas emissions.

"This financial crisis will pass but not the climate crisis," he told a news conference to present the study "Energy (R)evolution: A Sustainable World Energy Outlook."

With such an investment, future fuel costs could be slashed by more than 18 trillion dollars, greenhouse gas emissions could peak and then fall by 2015 and average carbon emissions per person could be reduced from today's four tonnes to around one tonne by 2050, the study said.

"Especially in the context of today