Era of the Paris Agreement
Swami Venkataraman is a senior vice president in the Global Utilities & Infrastructure Finance Group at Moody’s Investors Service, covering utilities, merchant power, gas midstream and renewable energy companies.
Amid the continuing roll-out of the Paris Agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Moody's Investors Service has prioritized research into the development of renewable energy. Moody's has also examined the credit impact of a transition away from carbon on debt issuers across a variety of sectors, including utilities, autos, oil and gas.
Moody's recently published a pair of reports focusing on the dramatic cost declines for renewable energy. Swami Venkataraman, a senior vice president at Moody's, led the research effort and addressed some key questions arising from the reports.
What Prompted Moody's Review of Renewable Energy Development in the U.S. and Across the Globe?
Over the past several years, investors have identified green finance and environmental issues as particular areas of interest. At the same time, we've seen wind and solar energy costs decline by sixty to eighty percent since 2010, with other emerging renewable technologies exhibiting similar trends.
We published the research ahead of this year's Climate Week NYC, the first such meeting since the U.S. signaled it would be exiting the Paris Agreement. We found it to be timely, given trends in the economics of renewable energy, plus a degree of uncertainty around future public policy.