The UN COP21 climate talks are the most comprehensive thus far and are showing that countries are actually preparing to take action on climate change. The solar industry is posed to be part of the answer and is increasingly working together to do so. On December 7th, the industry announced the launch of the Global Solar Council (GSC) in an attempt to share best practices and bring the solar power industry together at an international level. “The GSC believes that solar power is already one of the cheapest forms of electricity globally, a cost-effective means of fighting climate change, and the most versatile form of electricity generation,” said Trina Solar. That company’s CEO Jifan Gao was named one of the co-chairs of the GSC.

The Chairman of the GSC is Bruce Douglas, chief operating officer of SolarPower Europe. “Today the solar power sector has united to fight climate change,” Douglas said. “There is consensus that solar power will become the principal source of electricity generation. It has a hugely important role to play in the international efforts to ultimately eliminate carbon emissions from the power sector.” The GSC will work with developed nations as well as emerging nations. Emerging nations are quickly becoming one of the biggest markets for solar in the world, recently their investments in solar outweighed those of developed nations. Solar power will be imperative to avoiding a greater than 2 degrees Celsius increase in global temperature, according to the GSC.