"ABU DHABI — Renewable energy could meet nearly 80 percent of the world's energy needs by mid-century and play a crucial role in fighting global warming, the UN's climate scientists said Monday in a major report.

The 194-nation Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) said that renewable sources had grown rapidly, were widely competitive with fossil energies and, technically, had almost limitless potential.

But cleaner energy still faces formidable barriers, and governments must boost its development and peel back fossil-fuel subsidies for that potential to be realised, the panel cautioned.

'This report has a huge implication for the manner in which energy is going to be developed and used across the globe in the years ahead,' IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said at a press conference."

Nathalie Gillet reports for AFP May 9, 2011. [2]

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