Fossil fuel companies had predicted that the demand for polluting energy would rise until the 2040s. However, this forecast is likely inaccurate now with the renewable energy revolution taking root. The world’s dependence on fossil fuels looks to be coming to an end earlier than expected, offering hope against the global battle to tackle the climate crisis.
It seems as though the looming fossil fuel peak will now occur in the 2020s. Wind and solar power are emerging so quickly and at costs so low that they currently pose a direct threat to coal-fired electricity and combustion-engine vehicles.
Worldwide renewables are beginning to overtake fossil fuels. For example, in the UK, renewable energy projects generated more electricity over the last quarter than fossil fuels – an unbelievable feat seeing as just 10 years ago gas and coal-generated over 70% of the UK’s electricity.
Some experts are saying that the rapid rise of renewable energy in recent years may soon seem minuscule compared with the changes to come. The pace of progress has raised hope and inspired a surge of climate activists to protest in order to spark fresh political will to accelerate the energy transition further and faster. For example, as The Guardian reports:
The UK Labour party has promised a Green Industrial Revolution to create almost 70,000 new jobs while working to create a carbon-neutral economy by 2030. In the US, the Green New Deal, spearheaded by the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aims to virtually eliminate the US’s greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade.
It looks as though there’s a chance we will be able to keep global temperatures from rising to levels that could trigger a climate catastrophe. The founder of the research group Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), Michael Liebreich, says the substitution of old technology with new is always “like waiting for a sneeze.” He said:
The first 1% takes forever, 1% to 5% is like waiting for a sneeze – you know it’s inevitable but it takes longer than you think – then 5% to 50% happens incredibly fast. The world is about to enter this period of rapid transformation.
This change promises to upend the fossil fuel producers that fail to adapt at pace, and bring the rise of carbon emissions to an end. A growing number of energy experts agree. Over the next decade we’ll see a far quicker than expected roll-out of a number of clean energy technologies, which will almost certainly mean global emissions plateau.
What’s most exciting is that the roll-out of renewables will happen whether politicians increase their ambition or not because the economics of clean energy are now too strong to ignore. It has reached the point that renewable energy is cheaper than building a new gas or coal plant and very soon it will be cheaper than using existing thermal plants too, reports BNEF. It’s actually becoming so much cheaper that it makes more economic sense to shut down existing coal-fired power plants and build new renewable energy projects from scratch!
Seb Henbest, the lead author of the BNEF report, said:
It provides a lot of hope. It provides a counterbalance to the doom and gloom we face, partly because it includes up-to-date data which tells a slightly different story. It is a cautionary tale for fossil fuel companies that believe the world’s demand for polluting energy will continue to rise until the middle of the century. It is also a new narrative of hope.
We’re a lot further on than we were. And yes, we need to go faster. And yes, it’s difficult and complicated. But at the same time, we now live in a world where two-thirds of the global population live in a country where wind and solar power is the cheapest form of new electricity capacity. We have the tools to do this.
Chris Stark, the head of the UK’s official climate adviser, the Committee on Climate Change, added:
Even 10 years ago we were looking at a very different trajectory for global temperatures. We’ve moved on to a trajectory that today looks like 3C of warming [above pre-industrial levels], but prior to this we were on track for more than that; 4C, possibly even higher.
The progress to date is not yet enough to meet global targets set in the Paris Climate Agreement, but further ambition could bring the world closer to the sub-2° goal. Furthermore, a plateau in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 could play a major role in averting catastrophic global heating above 3°.
