Renewables are replacing coal basically right now in most of the important coal burning countries US, China, Germany.
It's not enough to say that renewables are small therefore don't matter.
What matters is the rate of change are where on the asymptote you may be. In the IEA they say that you need 620 GW of new renewables by 2020 to be on a 2 degree (low carbon) energy transition. With all the contracted development agreements and policies announced as of 2015 the IEA estimates that we'll build 550 GW of renewables by 2020. And that was before the production tax credit was extended in the US. Many serious financial and energy analysts are very confident we'll blow by the 620 target to over 700 GW by 2020. So yes, renewables are ramping hugely. And I would remind you the 620 GW target is for their low carbon 2 degree warming scenario. We're well on pace to stride past it. This is the energy transition.
Further, there's just ridiculous straw men being thrown around here. No serious person is saying that we should replace oil with renewables. Oil and fossil fuels still have a significant share of energy consumption in many low carbon reduction scenarios. Oil's share is typically around 20% in a low carbon world.
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