December 8, 2016, COP21, Paris

Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson appeared at a Paris COP21 press conference called “May the Force Be With You” along with Kevin Anderson and host Stuart Scott of climatematters.tv. Jacobson stated that an international transition to 100% renewable wind, water, and solar renewable energy by 2050 was technically and economically possible, though political and social barriers remain.

“We do think it’s possible not only to power the United States, each state of the whole country and the country itself, with 100% clean and renewable wind, water, and solar power for all purposes – that’s electricity, transportation, heating, and cooling, and industry – but we also have done studies now to show that it’s possible in each of 139 countries of the world that we’ve examined to do this, that such a transition is not only necessary, but it’s also technically and economically possible. But there are social and political barriers to actually getting the full implementation, although there has been some progress recently.”

“So we think there are so many benefits, … we calculate 22 million jobs worldwide net over lost of such a transition, and eliminating 4 to 7 million premature air pollution deaths which will cost the world today over 3% of the GDPs of all the countries of the world. And then eliminating global warming, if you actually phase these, do this on a global scale and eliminate 80% emissions by 2030, as we propose, and 100% by 2050, we can reduce the impacts of climate change and actually start reversing by 2100. ”

see also
Paris: Mark Jacobson and 100% Renewables

Report by James George