Renewable energy industry shows world ready for action against climate change: Australian expert

Australia's leading climate campaigner said the booming renewable energy industry is the proof the world is ready for comprehensive action against climate change.

Climate Council chief Professor Tim Flannery said the energy circumstances between the 2009 Copenhagen climate meeting and the upcoming Paris talks have changed, global consensus with further accelerate the industry.

The economic opportunities of the renewable energy sector are being realized as countries make their commitments to emissions reductions, Flannery said, which has now overtaken fossil fuels for new electricity generation, accounting for half of new capacity in the last two years.

Locally however, Flannery said Australia's renewable energy sector has been hampered by government policy.

"We went through five electoral cycles at the federal level, where we had clear bipartisan support for an ambitious renewable energy target ... that bipartisanship was then blown out of the water," Flannery told Australia's national broadcaster.

Renewable energy advocates have long claimed Australia is missing the enormous growth opportunities due to the wealth of sun, wind and natural geothermal heat.

The report comes as Australia's government claims it has met its 5 percent emissions reductions target by 2020, only days out from the Paris climate talks where almost 200 nations are expected to meet and agree to a global accord on climate change.

It's hoped agreements limiting global warming to a two degree rise, however Pacific nations have vocally campaigned for a 1.5 degree limit fearing their nations will be swallowed by eventual sea level rise.

Kiribati's President Anote Tong, whose impoverish low-lying Pacific nation is most vulnerable to climate change, has been calling for a global moratorium on expanding and constructing new coal mines to slow global warming.

Developing countries are also feeling the pinch, with new research suggesting a three-degree rise in global warming would cost 1.7 trillion U.S. dollars annually by 2050.

Current pledges by individual countries would halt warming at around 2.7 degrees, Oxfam Australia chief executive Helen Szoke said, whose research showed the figure is 600 billion U.S. dollars less if warming is limited to two degrees.

"World leaders need to step up," Szoke said, calling for tighter restrictions to global warming to an effort to help developing nations cope with climate change.

"Our report today shows the scale of the challenge facing the world's poorest people as a result of climate change, which they have done very little to cause," Szoke said. Endit