The 21st century saw unprecedented breakthroughs in the energy sector due to exploration, technical progress and consumption. The main decision reached at the In December 2015; United Nations held the 21st conference of parties (COP-21) that a crucial step is required by the world's countries to reduce CO2 emissions that will help prevent the global temperature from exceeding 2 °C above pre-industrial levels (R Clémençon, 2016). Models of population growth, energy demand, and climate change were considered to be integral components in defining how goals can be achieved concerning such policy decisions. For organic materials buried combustible geologic deposits, Fossil fuel is a general term referred to it. It's a substance which gives energy to things as it helps them to move. The hardened remains of ancient animals and plants are called fossil fuels. It is deemed to be a critical energy source. Oil is one kind of fossil fuel; coal is another. The third kind of fossil fuel is natural gas. For over a thousand years, all these fossil fuels have been used by people for their use (Conrad J. Storad, 2009). It can’t be ignored that energy is a vital input for economic growth in agriculture and industry. Besides increasing the environmental protection costs, fossil fuels are depleting fast day-by-day due to overexploitation. Search for renewable sources is essential to have a better quality of life. Renewable energy is considered a critically important research area amongst scientists since the dawn of the Twenty-First Century. Scientists have presented convincing and practical technologies on renewable energy; the process of getting countries to switch from their use of fossil fuels to renewable energy has been dubious and seems relatively slow in developing countries (Peter Droege, 2011). The Development of renewable energy sources and their technology is a proven technical and economic importance worldwide. To the economic development of any country, renewable energy plays an important role. On the one hand, it will provide material comforts to industrialized countries, while, on the other hand, it will help alleviate poverty in developing countries.
Although the world is trying to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources and the 21st century is regarded as a period of globalization, tremendous advancements are being expected in science and technology. Over the past thirty years, the rapid change of technology has brought various innovative changes due to such progress in technology and has also increased people's living standards. Scientists are producing new modern technologies for the betterment of human civilization in the comforts being built. The prevailing school of thought believes that a rapid move from fossil fuels to renewable energy is significant to people's well-being. In contrast, the other school of thought seems worried about the consequences of nurturing ecosystems as they believe that building machines that react with greenhouses with play a crucial role in creating pollution. It has been claimed by many scientists that carbon dioxide removal technologies will be seen as a licence to keep polluting by nations. (Umair Irfan, 2017)
In terms of industrialization and urbanization, the last three centuries have seen humanity's substantial dependence upon an ever-growing use of fossil fuels (Fanchi John R, 2013). The central contention is that a rapid move from fossil fuels to renewable energy is unrealistic for developing countries. This informs the widespread view that fossil fuels can be more or less “swapped out” for renewable, without significant economic consequences. However, an attempt is made to understand why developing countries use non-renewable energy resources, especially coal. As a consequence, the promise of these developed countries' technology is seriously impaired by their failure to implement clean energy technologies. Renewable energy adoption’s barriers fall into these seven categories: over-dependency on fossil fuels, especially coal, technical barriers, political and regulatory barriers, social-cultural barriers, market-related barriers, geographical and ecological barriers, as well as financial and economic barriers. Coal is a relatively well-established energy source, but there is no getting away from the hard fact that it creates carbon pollution. However, many developing countries have shifted their focus to renewable energy supply systems to rely less on coal-based energy. For instance, although 50 percent of India's new electricity generation is expected to be produced by renewable energy sources, the still coal-based era is highly required to meet expanding demands (World Bank, 2009). Coal has always served as a readily available and cheap resource to provide electricity for the growing populations in the developing economies.
According to the International Energy Agency (2017), coal in developing countries produces one-third of the global energy supply, making electricity generation 40 percent; that helps it play an essential industrial role. It is contended that replacing coal as an energy source is hard in the industries of developing countries. Conversely, infrastructural changes that are highly needed to replace non-renewable sources with renewable sources of energy are restrictive —in terms of cost and time. In 2017 when global development agencies and western banks were shutting down coal projects on environmental grounds, India was announced to be the second-biggest burner after China in the world, where coal consumption was 27m tonnes with a massive rise of 4.8 percent (The Economist, 2018). Similarly, a slow development rate is experienced in Africa due to limited access to renewable energy sources; it is due to the limitations concerning energy policies, the absence of technological advances, inadequate funds, and lack of adequate infrastructures. In addition to this, the population's rapid growth followed by a rapid increase in energy demand has led to the rise of an energy crisis that, consequently, increases people's dependence on non-renewable energy sources.
The utilization of coal is one of the barriers to developing renewable energy sources in developing countries, and it is imperative to sensitize people on coal's adverse effects. These effects include the emission of carbon dioxide and methane that leads to global warming, and when coal is burnt, other toxic gasses release, which can be injurious to people's health. However, despite its association with emissions' high levels, coal-fired energy production will be an essential energy source in developing countries for many more decades. Apart from over-reliance on fossil fuels, developing countries are reluctant to replace fossil fuels entirely with renewable energy sources due to many other barriers. As far as technology barriers are concerned, developing countries are unwilling to adopt modern technologies as they are high cost and imported (G. Feder, 1985). Sustaining them well in the developing countries is difficult due to the lack of experts to train, demonstrate, maintain and operate renewable energy structures, particularly in regions where education levels are low, and people don’t seem willing to import these technologies to the fear of failure. As far as political and regulatory barriers are concerned, they also hinder technology adoption in developing countries. Policies and regulations that favour the non-renewable energy’s development hamper the adoption of these technologies. There is always a need for clear guidelines as well as legal procedures to increase investors 'interest. In addition to this, having adopted regulatory measures such as codes and standards by any country is essential to enhance renewable energy sources.
However, in several developed countries such as India, no renewable energy policy declarations can be found simply because many of the country's renewable energy technologies remain in the embryonic stage (Mohammed, 2013). Social and cultural barriers can be regarded as one reason behind the failure to adopt renewable energy technologies in developing countries. For instance, general public disengagement and disinterest were seen in wind energy development that can be identified as the primary social issue, hindering renewable energy development in Pakistan (Tugrul U. Daim, Jisun Kim, Ibrahim Iskin, 2015). When it comes to financial and economic barriers, the adoption of any renewable energy technology is determined by countries' economic status that is not as high as of developed countries because Initial investment costs for renewable energy systems are often high. Geographical and ecological barriers also become a stumbling block for adopting renewable energy technologies in developing countries. The energy produced by solar is considered the cheapest form of electricity (Tom Randell, 2016), but it varies from region to region. For instance, the incidence of solar energy on the earth's surface is dependent on geographic location. Therefore, in many developing countries such as India, where wind and solar energy are sporadic, solar power is also broken that places constraints on the use of solar energy for not being reliable in such regions (Lawrence E. Jones, 2014)
It has, in conclusion, been made clear that many factors have played their role in becoming a hindrance to the adoption and development of renewable energy sources in developing countries, ranging from continued use of coal as a non-renewable source of energy to other factors such as technical, politics and governance, social-cultural, economic and financial as well as geographical and ecological. Therefore, it can be contended that all these factors, as mentioned earlier, have worked in tandem to make a rapid move from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources unrealistic for developing countries.