This year, new wind and solar power will more than meet growing demand for electricity globally, keeping fossil fuel consumption flat, analysts project.
Solar continues its exponential growth, with countries projected to add a third more solar energy than they did last year, according to figures from energy think tank Ember. The new wind and solar energy produced so far this year would be more than enough to power all of Germany.
China and India have both seen a small downturn in fossil power, offsetting rising consumption in the U.S. and E.U., according to Ember. Worldwide, wind and solar are outpacing rising demand for electricity, meaning fossil fuel use will stay flat this year for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic. Ember analyst Nicolas Fulghum said that “fossil power now appears to be entering a period of stagnation and managed decline.”
However, while the world is beginning to keep emissions from power plants in check, overall emissions continue to tick up, rising by 1.1 percent this year, according to a new report. At the current rate, the report finds, the world will have locked in 1.5 degrees C by the end of this decade, breaching a key goal of the Paris Agreement.
Coauthor Corinne Le Quéré, of the University of East Anglia, said that while the world is making progress in the shift to clean energy, “Progress is still much too fragile to translate into the sustained decreases in global emissions needed to tackle climate change.”
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