Renewable energy has been touted as one of the best solutions to the current burgeoning global energy crisis. Fossil fuels and their associated greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to global climate change, and oil is not going to last much longer. The peak of oil production has actually already passed according to some estimates. The investment in renewable energy is essential when it comes to the long-term stability of a modern society that is utterly dependent on having a lot of easily accessible energy. Fortunately, the financial incentives for renewable energy investment have increased in recent years and more and more countries all around the world are investing in renewable energy.

Renewable energy has been particularly pronounced in the emerging economies in the developing world. This is a positive development, since it means that the developing world is not going to become dependent on a resource that is rapidly waning, which is only going to cause them to go through the same Western struggle to make the transition to renewable energy. They’re going to build their economies on resources that are more stable to begin with, and they will be taking part in growing industries. Sustainability is a mega-trend, and developing economies may jump on it first.

Developing economies have invested a total of 156 billion dollars in renewable energy in the year 2015 alone. This is a full seventeen times the investment level of 2004, and it represents a nineteen percent increase from 2014. Interestingly enough, the developing world invested more money in renewable energy than the developed world, which invested more money in 2014 compared to 2015 by around eight percent. However, the developed world still invested 130 billion dollars in the year 2015, so renewable energy investment is still very strong in these very different world economies.

Renewable energy is still stereotyped as being impractical and financially unsound. However, the infrastructure for all energy takes some time and some financial resources to establish in the first place. It has become that much more important for people to be able to plan ahead by this point, and the political climate has changed in such a way that people are more enthusiastic about being able to invest in this new market. The tremendous investment in renewable energy all around the world has genuinely made renewable energy into a billion-dollar industry by this point. It has become profitable in a way that many people never would have predicted.

Off-shore wind power is becoming particularly profitable and common, allowing people to get many of the benefits associated with wind power and wind energy with few of the associated costs. The financial aspects of wind power have been favorable compared to those of other sources, since wind turbines are easier to establish than hydroelectric power plants. However, renewable energy in general has always required some initial investment from governments in order to get off the ground and to compete with the financial interests of the established coal and fossil fuel industry. The prominence of renewable energy investment has truly changed the face of the energy industry today.