Environment: Do you think renewable energy is a sound investment?

Solar energy site in California. (Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press)

Renewable sources such as solar and wind could supply up to 80 percent of the world's energy needs by 2050 and play a significant role in fighting global warming, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded Monday.

But the IPCC said that to achieve that level, governments would have to spend significantly more money and introduce policies that integrate renewables into existing power grids and promote their benefits in terms of reducing air pollution and improving public health.

Further development of the renewable energy sector will require significant investment in the next two decades of as much as $1.5 trillion by 2020 and up to $7.2 trillion from 2020 to 2030, according to the IPCC.

The IPCC has said swift, deep reductions in use of non-renewables are required to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 C above preindustrial levels, which could trigger catastrophic climate impacts.

Read more here.

- With files from the Associated Press

CBC Community member JohnMcGee questions who will pay for renewable energy in developing countries: "The report says poorer countries could afford wind and solar power. Ontarians, Danes, Germans, Spanish and French cannot afford the huge subsidies necessary to make it viable. So how can poor countries possibly swing it???"

Commenter Science Boy feels the investment is necessary: "Climate change notwithstanding, we'll eventually run out of oil. The investment in affordable green energy sources simply makes sense. The cost will be high, but the cost will be higher of doing nothing. And, by investing now we'll have Canadian companies that produce technologies rather than simply buy them from other countries."

Do you think renewable energy is a sound investment? Does it come at too high a cost or do the environmental implications justify the price tag? Share your thoughts in the comments.

(This survey is not scientific, it is based on readers' responses.)