A recent article in Forbes Magazine highlights an interview with Ramon Méndez Galain, Uruguay's former energy minister, who spearheaded the nation's energy transformation.

"We didn’t start with climate targets. We started with the problem of cost and reliability. The environment was a positive side effect, not the reason," Méndez Galain explains.

The economic impact has been profound. The total cost of electricity production decreased by roughly half compared to fossil-fuel alternatives, and the country attracted $6 billion in renewable energy investments over a five-year period—equivalent to 12% of its GDP. About 50,000 new jobs were created in construction, engineering, and operations, roughly 3% of the labour force.

Its economy has been growing at 6% to 8% annually, and its poverty rate has fallen from 30% to 8%.

That is solid proof that such changes are effective.

This puts paid to the myth that smaller population countries cannot make a difference by changing to alternative energy sources.

It will be interesting to see what other countries scale up this type of model.