A “Solarpunk” Future Is More Possible Now Than It Was Just a Few Years Ago
There's no reason to throw in the towel on human civilization.
I’m going to have to level with you: we’re going to hit 1.5°C warming, and there are going to be consequences. There will be continued wildfires, droughts, and melting ice caps. Sea levels are going to continue rising. Things are going to change. But is it game over? I’m no longer convinced.
The concern is that the “remaining carbon budget” (RCB) for hitting that 1.5°C benchmark is going to be exhausted by 2029, if carbon emissions persist at their current levels. But here’s the thing: we have good reason to expect that they won’t.
According to the International Energy Agency’s latest report:
Over 2022-2027, renewables are seen growing by almost 2,400 GW in our main forecast, equal to the entire installed power capacity of China today. That’s an 85% acceleration from the previous five years, and almost 30% higher than what was forecast in last year’s report, making it our largest ever upward revision.
Coal is now expected to be overtaken by renewables in 2025 as the largest source of global energy. And that doesn’t even count contributions from nuclear fission.
The United Nations’ climate summit for this year, COP28, netted the first ever international agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. Now, while I agree that this deal should have happened much earlier and with regulations that bite, this is still nevertheless a crucial diplomatic step and a sign of global unity in an otherwise chaotic, unstable time. There’s also a fair criticism to be made of the president of COP28, Sultan Al Jaber (the CEO of the United Arab Emirates’ national oil and gas company), in that he plans to continue investing in oil production. But importantly, his investment does not represent an increase in production, just a maintenance of current levels. He added that “At the end of the day, remember, it is the demand that will decide and dictate what sort of energy source will help meet the growing global energy requirements.”
While that’s certainly a cop out, and we shouldn’t be surprised that a leader of a country whose top two exports are crude and refined petroleum is in favor of exporting oil, he’s not wrong. Demand will determine our energy. But this is my point: demand has already made astronomical shifts towards renewables.
The IEA 2022 report further calculates that “over 90% of global electricity capacity expansion” over the next five years is going to be due to renewables. That means that over 90% of the growth in energy demand is going to be for renewables. Better still, that growth is due to policy and investment shifts by the world’s largest emitters, China, the U.S., the E.U. and India.
China in particular is a big one. For years we have heard the self-defeating argument that “well it doesn’t matter what we do here in the U.S., China’s not doing anything to curb their emissions.” Now they’re leaving us in the dust with the amount of investments being made in renewables; they’re now expected to double their solar and wind capacity by 2025, a full five years ahead of their original target date of 2030. On top of that, the agreement they just inked with us a few weeks ago is also the first time they’ve agreed to limit all greenhouse gases (including methane and nitrogen oxide), not just carbon dioxide.
Globally, investments in renewables have far outstripped investments in fossil fuels, and even oil executives are shifting gears. In the United States, where already solar and wind make up more than a fifth of overall energy generation, it is true that there are continued investments in fossil fuel production. However, look at where the money is starting to flow.
The CEO of Vistra, one of the country’s largest fracking companies, will not be opening any more natural gas power plants, and has invested over a billion dollars solar farms and battery storage facilities in California and Texas, because he is “hellbent on not becoming the next Blockbuster Video.” Ford, known for its enormous gas guzzling trucks, has broken ground on BlueOval City in Tennessee, where it will create the “next generation” of electric trucks, as well as operate a million square foot battery recycling center. Their current electric truck is already powerful enough to charge a house for days in the event of an outage. And speaking of Tennessee, Knoxville-based gas station company Pilot Flying J has partnered with GM to install a nationwide fast-charging network for EVs, and the Tennessee Valley Authority just got approved to build the first non-water-cooled nuclear reactor in 50 years. Tennessee’s also getting a $2.3 billion lithium EV battery plant and a massive cathode production facility.
I could keep listing Tennessee investments, as well as scores of others across “red” states in the U.S., but I think I’ve made my point. The money is talking, and the “free market” is shouting “go green.” I originally made this argument in the Tennessean in the summer of 2021, but with the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that November and the exceptionally pro-green Inflation Reduction Act the following year, the argument has only gotten stronger. Renewables are already the cheapeast way to generate electricity, even before you add in the benefits of the subsidies.
I want to wrap up with this clip from 1998’s Pleasantville, wherein a teacher makes the following prediction: “By the time you are 30, the average global temperature will have risen by 2.5 degrees.”
Assuming the average age of the students in this clip is supposed to be 18, this film was predicting that by 2010, the Earth will have warmed by 2.5°C. That’s not far off from what actual projections were back in the ‘90s. In fact, even as late as 2011, we were on track for 6 degrees of warming by 2100. As of this year, we’re looking at 1.5°C by 2040 and 4°C by 2100. If even the meager accomplishments of the 2010s had a meaningful impact, I can’t wait to see what the impact will be from this year’s unprecedented investment in renewables. And again, only a few years ago, the “red” states in the U.S. and China were the largest barriers to change. Now they’re the biggest drivers of it.
So don’t throw in the towel just yet. We aren’t done, and we’re starting to win.
