A renowned environmentalist says renewables like solar and wind will never be the answer to climate change.

President of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre Dr Bjorn Lomborg is an advocate for clean energy, but says renewables are unreliable and we need to invest in discovering new technology to make any difference.

He tells Chris Smith solar and wind currently produce less than one per cent of global energy.

“The world has spent the last two centuries trying to get away from renewables because they’re unreliable and they, quite frankly, take up a lot of space and much of them are not very environmentally friendly.

“What has worked in the past is technology. If we can make cheaper green energy for the future we will solve the problem, not just because rich people in Australia and elsewhere will buy this cheaper and greener product, but because the Chinese and the Indians will.

“Imagine if we, among these thousands of good ideas, could find just one or two that’ll actually be cheaper than fossil fuel and greener at the same time. Everyone will buy them!”

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