TITLE: The world has passed a turning point in the history of energy
https://www.semafor.com/article/05/07/2024/the-world-has-passed-a-turning-point-in-the-history-of-energy
EXCERPT: The world reached a huge milestone in 2023: Renewable sources accounted for 30% of global electricity for the first time. That’s the biggest takeaway from the annual report produced by the energy think tank where I work, Ember.
The rapid growth in solar and wind power has brought the world to a crucial pivot point — likely this year — where fossil fuel-powered generation will start to decline at a global level.
As a result, 2023 will likely go down in history as the peak of emissions in the power sector. That’s incredibly positive news. Fossil fuels may still generate 61% of the world’s electricity, but the renewables future is coming into sight. And faster than you think.
But there’s still a long way to go. The pace of emissions falling — and what that means for efforts to keep temperature increases within the world’s 1.5 degree Celsius target — depends on how fast this renewables revolution goes.
Here are five things you need to know from our landmark report.
1. The renewables future has arrived
Growth in building out solar and wind pushed the world past 30% renewable electricity last year for the first time ever.
The pace of change is astonishing. Hydropower has historically been the dominant source of the world’s renewable electricity, providing around a sixth of the world’s electricity in the last two decades. But the newcomers on the scene — solar and wind — are driving all the recent growth. Together, they generated a record 13% of global electricity in 2023, double what they accounted for in 2017.
Last year also brought clean energy and fossil fuels into competition like never before: In 2023, for the first time, global investment in solar topped investment in oil production.
2. Solar is growing faster than anyone thought possible
The growth in solar capacity installed in 2023 was truly off the scale.
The prior year already saw record levels of solar-power installations, breaking 200 gigawatts for the first time. Last year smashed that with 444 GW, topping virtually every credible forecast. As recently as 2022, the International Energy Agency forecast only 257 GW.
The continued supply of cheap solar meant that it maintained its status as the world’s fastest-growing source of electricity generation for the 19th consecutive year.
China is leading the charge. The country installed more solar panels in 2023 than the US has in its entire history. Clean energy was the top driver of China’s economic growth in 2023. For other fast-growing solar markets like South Africa, a secure supply of electricity is a major motivating factor.
3. The best is still yet to come with solar
Solar power is taking off around the world, but many sunny countries have still yet to harness its potential.
Six countries generated at least a sixth of their electricity from solar last year. Some intuitively make sense: Chile topped the table with 20% of its electricity coming from solar in 2023, up from just 2% in 2015. Others are surprising. The Netherlands — not known as a particularly bright or warm place — ranked fourth, proving that it’s not the sun that matters, but enabling policies.
Those examples show how much further the solar boom has to go. Countries like Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia still generate less than 3% of their electricity from solar, despite some of the best conditions in the world. For sunny regions like Africa, overcoming financial barriers will be crucial.
The early adopters of solar are proving that whether you are a sunny country or not, solar can rapidly become a major source of cheap, clean electricity.
4. A down year for wind
Solar’s sidekick has had a tougher year, with weak Midwest breezes in the US a key cause of slower-than-expected growth in the world’s wind generation in 2023.
But long-term trends suggest that the recent blip won’t hold back wind power. Overall wind generation still reached a new record high in 2023, tripling since 2015. Like with solar, China continues to lead, installing 65% of the global wind-power capacity added during 2023.
Despite concerns that the industry is struggling, its long-term outlook nevertheless looks encouraging: The offshore wind industry is overcoming its inflationary and planning problems, though cheap onshore wind remains largely untapped.
Wind doesn’t need the same rapid trajectory as solar to put the world on course for net zero. But it will be crucial to rapidly replacing fossil fuels, and needs to become the backbone alongside solar of the future clean electricity system.
5. The fossil fuel-power era is ending
A new era of falling fossil generation is imminent. 2023 will likely go down in history as the peak of emissions in the power sector.
The rapid growth in solar and wind has brought the world to this crucial pivot point. Solar and wind have already helped to slow the growth in fossil generation over the last decade, and 2024 will bring a bumper year of renewable generation, with the rise in solar generation set to double from the previous year.
A long-term decline in power sector emissions is now not just inevitable but imminent, even as the world enters a new phase of higher electricity demand as we electrify all manner of technologies from transportation to heating.
The pace of emissions falls still depends on how fast the renewables revolution continues. It’s a big task, but the costs are far outweighed by the benefits — a liveable planet, with cheaper and more secure energy.
TITLE: Households Wince at the Rising Price of Going Green
https://www.wsj.com/science/environment/green-energy-taxes-governments-consumers-7439400d
EXCERPT: Consumers are starting to pay for the energy transition, and they aren’t happy about it.
Governments that were among the earliest in the world to adopt climate legislation tried to take the sting out of the transition by motivating consumers with subsidies. Now, however, the same capitals are cash-strapped and many are passing the bill to the consumer. Subsidies are being scaled back, taxes tied to carbon emissions are being phased in, and rules requiring expensive renovations are starting to bite.
Many consumers, including those who broadly support the energy transition, are unwilling to pay up. Farmers have laid siege to Paris and other European capitals over plans to remove diesel-fuel subsidies. German households have rebelled against requirements to replace polluting gas boilers. In California, homeowners and small businesses seeking to install solar panels are running up against new metering rules that cut by roughly three-quarters the amount of money they can get for selling electricity back into the grid.
Governments lined up a slew of climate measures years ago when interest rates were low and energy supplies seemed abundant. Now those changes are coming into force, and governments are facing a new calculus. Wars in Ukraine and Gaza are forcing Western governments to spend more on defense while grappling with higher energy costs and inflation.
The challenge lies in designing climate policy with geopolitical shock absorbers. French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested Europe might require a “regulatory pause” so its economy can absorb the impact of the Ukraine war, and the European Union has recently trimmed some of its climate measures.
Delaying the energy transition by as little as five years, however, could lead to an increase in the average global temperature of three degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, according to energy research firm Wood Mackenzie. That exceeds the landmark Paris accord’s threshold of 1.5 degrees.
For now, energy-transition fatigue is setting in. Three-quarters of energy consumers say they have already done as much as they can to be sustainable, according to a survey of 100,000 people over 20 countries by the research arm of accounting firm Ernst & Young.
The energy transition is falling “on the shoulders of the low- and mid-income-level people in a disproportionate way,” said Fatih Birol, chief of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, which is tasked with keeping governments on track to meet their climate targets. “The worst thing for the energy transition is that it is perceived as being done by and for the elites.”
TITLE: Buddha taught us to be happy with less. How does this apply to the climate crisis?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/06/buddha-taught-us-to-be-happy-with-less-how-does-this-apply-to-climate-crisis
EXCERPT: The Buddha taught that the cause of the problem is greed and its solution is contentment. We like to think that we can save the Earth, but the Earth doesn’t need saving, it can take care of itself. We need to realise that the Earth is more than a resource for satisfying our desires.
So how do we want less?
According to Buddhism, there is no limit to human craving. But the Buddha sets out a clear path to understanding why we want so much and how we can learn to be happy with less. That path begins when we ask ourselves what is it that we really need?
It’s not enough to just simplify your own life. The ethos of “enough” must go beyond our personal attitudes and choices and extend to the political and social domain. This may include thinking about who we elect and rejecting the myth that individuals alone can save the Earth.
That’s why the Buddha didn’t speak of hope – at least in the way many of us understand it. Instead, he taught that we create our futures through our actions in the present.
The scientists, engineers and technologists have done their job and we know what we need to do. We’re just not doing it.