The need to make the transition from burning fossil fuels to generating energy from clean, renewable sources — such as the sun, the wind, biomass, hydro, geothermal sources — has become very urgent. Today, only 8.4 percent of the world’s electricity comes from renewable sources. However, it is forecast that by 2050, half of the world’s energy requirements will be met from renewable sources.

After such gloomy predictions on the state of the Earth’s climate in 2040, it is good to be able to report that phenomenal and unexpected progress is being made in developing renewable sources of energy generation. This progress is so great that I consider it to be the start of a renewable energy revolution.

Over the past eight years, the price of solar voltaic panels has fallen by 86 percent. Over the same period, the cost of energy from offshore wind farms has fallen by 23 percent. At the same time, the efficiency of solar panels has doubled and the amount of power gener