In Record Year, World Pours $286 Billion Into Renewable Energy

Last year, countries around the world installed more renewable energy capacity than ever before. Investments in solar, wind and hydropower were more than twice as high as the amount spent on developing new fossil fuel sources.

China accounted for more than one third of the $286 billion spent on renewable energy development in 2015, according to a new report by REN21, a renewable energy think tank based at the United Nations Environment Program in Paris.

The report cited falling costs as a key reason that the world added about 147 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity last year, a number roughly equal to the total generating capacity of all of Africa.

Maggie Lake, host of CNN Money with Maggie Lake, joins Here & Now's Robin Young to look at the growing and increasingly global industry of renewable energy.