Climate reports abound. The temperature is flying. Sea levels are rising. Companies missing or leaving – their emission targets.
A new report from the nonprofit Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit looks at some surprising progress since the Paris Climate Agreement 10 years ago.
Renewable energy grew faster than every major forecast in 2015. It already has four times as much solar energy as the International Energy Agency expected 10 years ago. World alone, the world has installed 553 solar panels with 553 solar installations – powering 100 million US homes, 1,500% more than the IEA predicted. Investors are now pouring twice as much into fossil fuels as renewables.
One in five new cars sold is now a home; A decade ago, it was one in 100. Although growth is occurring now, the world is on track to reach 100 million homes by 2028. Dozens of countries have net zero branches with legally mandated and comprehensive climate laws. Outside of the world’s 2,000 largest companies, there are about 1,300 zero-goal companies. Ten years ago, by the end of the century, the world was on its way to battling catastrophic 4 degrees of global warming. Now predictions have dropped to around 2.6 degrees – not nearly enough, but a big step in the right direction.
Typical climate reports, such as the UN’s emissions gap report, lead us to wonder how far the world has come. “Every time they say the same thing, basically, we’re not doing enough,” says John Lang, director of the Net Zero Tracker, Energy and Climate Intelligence division. “It’s one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that we’ve made incredible progress and shared structural, sustainable emissions reductions over the next decades.”
A decade ago, predictions of renewable energy growth were wrong in part because models underestimated how the scale of production in China could help lower costs. Solar is now 66% cheaper than it was a decade ago. In 2024, the cost of lithium-ion batteries has decreased by 20% in one year. Globally, 91% of renewable energy projects are cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives.
There are now clear challenges, particularly the supply chains for the Trump Administration’s pro-climate push and increased supply chain protectionism. Still, “the market is stronger than a person,” says Lang. Renewable energy will continue to grow. In China, waste has been thrown since last March. China also exports clean energy technology to other countries. In the US, 19 states, representing half of the country’s GDP, still have net zero goals.
“The narrative since 2015 has been around innovation, we’re going to see more innovation through constraints,” he says. “So despite my protectionism, I don’t see this unstoppable momentum slowing down.”
The world still has a long way to go. The planet has already warmed by 1.3 degrees Celsius, and we are seeing the catastrophic effects, from more intense hurricanes and wildfires killing coral reefs. There is little chance that we will be able to avoid warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius, one of the targets of the Paris Agreement. But the issue of warming is one in ten and there is still time to change the trajectory.
“This decade wasn’t always going to be about laying the groundwork,” Lang said. “The IPCC is not going as fast as it wants to go. But the reality is it’s hard. I always think of Emmanuel Kant’s quote, ‘out of the crooked timber of mankind, nothing has been created.’ It’s politically and culturally difficult, and it’s the biggest energy transition people can go through. “