SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS
On a local level, societies may benefit from municipal and community-owned renewable energy schemes. In such schemes, the centralised nature of power is decentralised, giving end-users more control over the whole system.
On a national level, renewable energy may create new jobs in the industry and support moves towards a long-term sustainable development plan with lower risks associated with fuel import volatility, carbon prices and political tensions. This is particularly true where countries are highly dependent on fuel imports.
The trade in electricity between countries is less prone to political tension than trade involving oil and gas. Naturally, some countries have more energy resources than others, but differences in electricity resources are smaller than those relating to fossil fuel reserves.
Climate change is likely to affect future migration patterns. The latest IPCC report described the African continent as the one that will be most affected by climate change. As a consequence, Europe is likely to see increasing amounts of climate refugees. At the moment, Finland and Sweden are the only countries in the world with an official policy concerning environmental migrants in their official immigration and asylum policies. This may be subject to change as weather trends become increasingly less predictable and more severe and the number of “climate change refugees” increases.
The cost of renewable power has been decreasing for decades and dropping faster than anticipated. Now, renewable power uptake is increasing the electricity prices and requires government support. However, in the long term, as technology matures, the costs of running an entire energy system on renewable energy will be lower and subsidies on fossil fuels are likely to fall away.