Newsletter (copy 32)

The energy transition is happening faster than you think

June 12, 2024

Happy Wednesday, dear reader.

Some good news to kick things off:

  • The EU has agreed to quit the international energy investment treaty — which protects fossil fuel projects — over climate concerns.

  • Sri Lanka says it will reach net zero emissions by 2040.

  • A climate scientist, Claudia Sheinbaum, has won Mexico’s presidential election.

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Thanks for reading.

Nick Hedley

Editor, The Progress Playbook

The global clean energy transition is outpacing almost all projections, according to a new analysis by nonprofit research group RMI, which says the goals of the Paris Agreement remain “feasible” despite widespread scepticism.

“Exponential change has been remarkable in the past decade,” the group writes in a new report. “The drivers of growth are more powerful than the barriers.”

Among other findings, RMI says cleantech costs have fallen by up to 80% over the past 10 years, spurring a near tenfold increase in investment and twelvefold surge in solar generation. Meanwhile, “the deep force of efficiency”, combined with advances in electrification, has reduced energy demand by a fifth.

As a result, additions of fossil fuel-based electricity capacity peaked in 2010, oil and gas capital expenditure peaked in 2014, and internal combustion engine (ICE) car sales have declined from their highs of 2017. Fossil fuel demand peaked in the industrial sector in 2014 and in the buildings sector in 2018, RMI says.

In the electricity sector, the peak “most likely” came in 2023, and transport will soon follow.

- Read the full story here.

Poland, which is considered a laggard in climate action due to its unusually heavy reliance on coal, has made substantial progress in shifting to cleaner energy technologies and ditching that label, a new analysis shows.

While coal remains the largest component of the electricity mix, its share fell to an all-time low of 60.5% in 2023 — a 10 percentage point decline in a single year, according to a new report by Polish climate and energy research group Forum Energii.

On the other hand, renewables produced a record 27% of the nation’s electricity. That’s up from 12.8% just five years before thanks to a 40-fold increase in solar output and a doubling of wind production over the period, per data collated by Ember.

- Read the full story here.

Guinness’ flagship brewery in Dublin is swapping out fossil fuels for electric heat pumps and biogas as it seeks to slash greenhouse gas emissions and become more efficient.

Parent company Diageo has announced plans to invest more than €100 million to decarbonise the historic St. James’s Gate facility, where Guinness has been brewed for 264 years. Until now, the facility has relied on either coal or gas for its power, steam and heating requirements.

- Read the full story here.

In April, a first-of-its-kind randomised control trial in Bangladesh found that reading glasses dispensed by community health workers boosted recipients’ monthly income by 33%.

This demonstrates the potentially huge gains on offer as a new global programme sets out a pathway to help countries increase the proportion of people with access to appropriate spectacles by 40 percentage points.

- Read the full story here.

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Five urban centres are working to mitigate the deadly impact of heatwaves by deploying chief heat officers, with more expected to follow. These stewards of city life coordinate work to provide residents with relief from high temperatures, to adapt cities for a warming world and to raise awareness of the risks posed by an oft-underestimated danger.

- Read the full story here.

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Thanks in part to their ambitious renewable energy programmes, Denmark and Estonia are the world leaders in climate action, a recent assessment by a group of non-profit researchers has found.

Both countries aim to complete the transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2030, notes the 2024 Climate Change Performance Index, which was complied by Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute, and the Climate Action Network.

Denmark is well on its way, with renewables comprising 88% of its electricity mix in 2023, according to data collated by Ember. Estonia has more work to do, but the share of renewables in its electricity system has surged from 16% to 44% in just five years.

- Read the full story here.

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