A wind farm on the Baltic, near Rügen Island, Germany. Wind and solar accounted for 22 percent of electricity generation in Europe last year.Fred Tanneau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The shift to renewable energy is speeding up. Here’s how.
Wars have unintended consequences.
Russia’s war in Ukraine seems to have sped up the global energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables.
This is a big deal. Most of us take for granted that we will enter a dark room and flick on the lights, that our homes will be warm in winter, that we will look out the window of a car and watch the world go by.
But what powers our lives is undergoing a huge change.
Consider three recent developments.
Consider three recent developments.
First, according to the International Energy Agency, an estimated $1.4 trillion poured into “clean energy” projects in 2022, a category that includes solar farms, batteries, and electric vehicle charging stations. That’s more than ever before and more than the money that poured into new oil and gas projects. Fatih Birol, the head of the agency, described the energy crisis spurred by the Russian invasion as “an accelerator for clean energy transitions.”
Second, BloombergNEF, a research firm, described this direction of change in a report published last week. Investments in low-carbon energy “reached parity” with capital aimed at expanding fossil fuels, it said.
And finally, the oil giant BP said this week that it expected the war in Ukraine would push countries to ramp up renewable energy projects for the sake of energy security and that oil and gas demand could peak sooner than the company had anticipated just a year ago.
Spoiler alert: The shift away from fossil fuels isn’t happening fast enough to stay within relatively safe boundaries of climate change. For that to happen, a handful of big emerging economies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America will need more renewable energy projects. Financing those projects is more expensive in the countries of the global south than it would be in Europe and North America.
You’re going to hear a lot more going forward about the energy transition. It’s worth pausing for a minute today and looking at how big these changes are.
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A wind farm on the Baltic, near Rügen Island, Germany. Wind and solar accounted for 22 percent of electricity generation in Europe last year.Fred Tanneau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
