Currently 1.3 billion people lack electricity, even as a burgeoning middle class - expected to grow from 2 billion to 5 billion people by 2050 - is demanding more electric power.

Steers says 1,200 coal-fired power plants have been proposed globally in 59 countries, largely in China and India, two of the world’s biggest sources of carbon emissions. He notes renewable energy investment fell in 2012 for the first time in eight years.

But Steers is encouraged by government policies which could help reverse that trend.

“Over 100 countries now have renewable energy targets. And so what we’re looking out for this year is whether some of those new policies have bite and whether we are going to cross a threshold so that renewable energy is recognized as a truly economically viable solution.”

Renewal bubble

Ken Green, who directs the Center for Energy and Natural Resources Studies at the Fraser Institute, a free-market public policy research group based in Canada, says the market share for renewables is slim and doesn’t see them making headway any time soon.

Natural gas, one of the most abundant energy sources in the world, is favored by many nations as a transition fuel to a greener economy, as shown in this drilling rig in Uchsay, Uzbekistan. (Anatoliy Rakhimbayev)

Instead he expects what he calls the renewal bubble to burst.

“The growth in green investments that have been inflated by governments spending themselves into huge debts and deficits, and from the look of things in Europe and in the U.S., all that debt-fueled spending is going to have to come to an end sooner rather than later, based on their economies," Green says. "So I'd expect green investments to decline as more private investors realize that it’s a highly uncertain place to put your money.”