Wind power could generate 12 per cent of the world's energy and save ten billion tonnes of emissions by 2020, according to a new report.
The Global
Wind Energy Outlook 2008 claims that the emission of up to 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 a year could be avoided by harnessing wind power.
Achieving these figures would contribute to the reduction in CO2 emissions specified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
"We only have a few years to achieve a decline in global CO2 emissions and wind power is going to have to play a major part in that. No other technology can come close to delivering the required new power generation capacity without emissions in that time frame," said GWEC Secretary General Steve Sawyer.
He added that wind generation is the only renewable zero emissions technology which could be deployed now on the scale necessary for meeting targets.
E.ON has 20 onshore and offshore wind farms in the UK and is constructing a further facility at Robin Rigg.
