Outlook brightens for renewables

Renewables are the energy source of the future. Not too many years back it was hard to conceive that the sun’s rays could be harnessed into electricity – those what-will-the-future-look-like Laserdisc videos students were forced to watch when the substitute teacher covered 8th grade Life Science just didn’t seem that realistic. While planet earth may not be the utopian dream thought up then, today renewable energy is more and more the source of power charging our smartphones, lighting our homes and cooling our places of work. Today the outlook for renewables is promising, linked to international commitments to reduce greenhouse gasses agreed to at the Paris Agreement in December 2015. There, Lebanon committed to reducing gas emissions by up to 15 percent unconditionally and by as much as 30 percent, depending on the provision of international support, both by 2030 (see climate change article). Alongside installing more renewables on the