Green Shift to Sustainability: Co-benefits and Impacts of Energy Transformation

Energy transformation toward 100 percent renewable energy is desirable and inevitable. New energy systems, based on efficiency, renewables, storage and smart management, are cheaper to build, run and maintain. They harvest free environmental flows, often for self-consumption. Fossil fuel extraction and commodity trade will end, as fossil asset values erode in a shrinking sector that loses its role in capital formation, international trade, economic activity and government revenue. Energy transformation is beneficial overall, and yet it may produce misleading signals in outdated statistics. International organizations and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures should address this paradox in joint reports to the Group of Twenty leaders, ministers of finance and central bank governors.