ENERGY DESTINY ENTIRE : BRAZIL - COST RICA - ESSAY [2]

It's hard to top the economic success stories concerning clean energy and it's tragic that these achievements aren't more widely known.

Germany, where the sun shines on average as much as it does in London, reportedly set the world record for electricity generated from the sun in a single day : 22 gigawatts, or roughly the output of 20 nuclear power plants.

Long mislabeled as expensive and unwieldy, the clean-energy sector in the U.S., was actually growing by 8.3% before the economic slowdown,  more than twice the rate of the overall economy.

In fact, those European countries meeting their Kyoto Protocol commitments have been among the least hard hit by the economic crisis, including Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

If sustainable energy were bad economics, Costa Rica wouldn't be one of the richest countries in the region, with what is arguably the greenest economy in the world.

COSTA RICA certainly has one of the world's highest percentages of electricity generated by renewable resources as well as an enormous conservation ethic : 26% of its landmass is in national parks, 51% in forest cover.

At the moment, I am most optimistic about Brazil, not only because of its significant growth in the past decade but also because of something that simultaneously declined : its level of economic inequality.

Brazilians did it by creating a pile of new jobs and paying poor families to send their children to school and get annual checkups.

They did it by controlling their energy destiny, not simply developing their oil resources but also maximising their hydropower.

And they did it while planning to cut by 75% the annual rate of rain-forest destruction, Brazil certainly still has its share of challenges, but its successes have been truly astonishing.

The World Students Society thanks H.E. President Bill Clinton.