This Saturday, June 15, is Global Wind Day, and this year the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) is asking people globally to put pressure on world leaders leading in to the G8 summit to keep their commitment to phase out fossil fuels and adopt renewable energy.

According to EWEA, the level of fossil fuel subsidies has increased nearly 30 percent to $620 billion since 2010. Today, fossil fuels receive six times more subsidies than renewable energy. Simultaneously, global carbon dioxide (CO2) levels have reached a record high of 400 ppm, a level that climate change experts say is hindering efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control.

“While world leaders pay lip service to combating climate change, what they are actually doing is subsidizing CO2 emissions to the tune of US$110/tonne. Fossil fuel energy subsidy reform could take us a long way towards protecting the climate,” said Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of the Global Wind Energy Council.

EWEA says wind energy has become a mainstream technology: it is already cheaper in Australia and Brazil than conventional energy sources and directly competes with them in an expanding number of markets including Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and parts of China and the U.S. Wind power is turning into the power technology of choice as utilities, energy planners and governments seek to diversify their energy mix, reduce CO2 emissions and air pollution, protect their economies from volatile fossil fuel prices and benefit from increased investment and job creation. EWEA says with the right policy support wind could reach 1,000 GW by 2020 avoiding over 9 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.

Opinion polls and surveys across the markets show overwhelming public support for wind power providing an important signal to decision-makers: According to a Eurobarometer survey 89 percent of EU citizens are in favor of wind energy, compared to 43 percent for coal and 36 percent for nuclear. In 2012 a survey conducted in the U.S. showed that 71 percent of Americans want to see more wind power development and in Canada a research poll found that 78 percent of Ontarians say that wind is one of the safest forms of electricity generation. In a recent survey in the UK, two-thirds of the Britons voted in favor of wind energy.