Aside from leading to a much cleaner and healthier environment, one of the most important benefits if such a transition is that it would break the hold that the big oil companies have over all of us, and obviously over our governments as well.
This is shown throughout the unfolding saga of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The US government was complicit at every stage of the BP's efforts to downplay the magnitude of the spill, and since the well has been capped and now plugged it has been doing everything it can to declare the whole sad affair over and done with.