There is something of a reality check under way on the response to the climate crisis. It\u2019s no secret that countries and corporations are far from living up to the goals set by international leaders at the landmark 2015 Paris agreement.<\/p>\n
Unless there is a significant course correction, the ramifications will be far-reaching and often destructive. The second coming of Donald Trump and growing global instability has made a top-down injection of urgency at the pace needed harder to imagine. Optimism is harder to come by.<\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t mean nothing is happening.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth pointing this out because a narrative has started to take hold that renewable energy and other clean solutions have made little to no headway in displacing fossil fuels, and therefore are pointless. Fuelled by Tony Blair<\/a> and the former US government adviser Daniel Yergin<\/a>, and embraced by the fossil fuel industry and its lapdogs in the commentariat, it is used to attack zero emissions targets as a fool\u2019s dream. In Australia, it is part of the backdrop as the Albanese government is lobbied over whether to set an ambitious emissions reduction target for 2035.<\/p>\n The reality, though, is more complicated. Here are some things worth considering if you hear climate action is pointless.<\/p>\n Clean energy is coming for fossil fuels<\/p>\n One line that has gained some traction this year is that the proportion of global energy supply from fossil fuels has barely moved over the past 35 years. The claim \u2013 bubbling away in the The Australian<\/a>, on Sky News and on social media \u2013 goes that dirty fuels provided 85% of energy in 1990, and still provide 80% today.<\/p>\n So much for progress, right?<\/p>\n But the Bloomberg New Energy<\/a> Finance founder and self-declared conservative Michael Liebreich points out that this ignores an important factor.<\/p>\n The percentages referred to by fossil fuel advocates are for primary energy \u2013 that is, raw coal, crude oil, gas, wood, sun or wind. They do not refer to useful energy<\/a> \u2013 energy that has been converted into a transportable form, such as electricity or refined petroleum, delivered to a consumer and then used to light their house or move their car.<\/p>\n This useful energy is the more relevant measure. And the process of processing raw fossil fuels into useful energy is, in many cases, not particular efficient. More energy is lost in generating at a remote coal-fired power plant and transmitting it to a home<\/a> than if solar, wind or hydro was used. Petrol cars require much more energy to travel a kilometre than an electric vehicle does.<\/p>\n If we acknowledge this and consider useful energy alone, Liebreich says the amount of energy provided by fossil fuels is not 80%, but about 68%.<\/p>\n This is obviously still too high. But it won\u2019t stay at this level. Despite all the talk of new coal plants still being built, they are playing in the margins. The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that solar and wind will meet more than 90% of the global increase in electricity demand this year<\/a>. Global generation from solar and wind energy is expected to increase by about 25%, from 4,000 terawatt-hours to more than 5,000. Next year it is expected to jump another 20%, past 6,000TWh.<\/p>\n The IEA projects that global renewable energy output \u2013 including solar, wind and hydro \u2013 will surpass coal output in either 2025 or 2026. For the first time in a century, the share of electricity coming from coal will have fallen to less than 33%.<\/p>\n Solar and wind will together be nearly 20% \u2013 up from 4% a decade ago.<\/p>\n A key question is if this growth in renewable energy will eventually reduce global fossil fuel use \u2013 as is necessary \u2013 or mostly just meet growing energy demand. Liebreich argues compellingly that fossil fuel use is set to fall<\/a>. Using a simple model, he suggests it is likely to start falling in the 2040s and could be squeezed out of the system by about 2065.<\/p>\n That is not near fast enough to deliver the trajectory scientists say is needed to limit global heating since pre-industrialisation to 1.5C. But it is a well argued rejection of claims that a global transition isn\u2019t possible.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Clear Air Australia<\/p>\n Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n China? It\u2019s moving<\/p>\n With a population of 1.4 billion and having taken on a huge proportion of the world\u2019s manufacturing, China is easily the world\u2019s biggest direct national climate polluter, pumping out more than twice as much CO2 as the second-placed US.<\/p>\n Its story is mixed, as always. But the data show it is changing. An analysis for Carbon Brief<\/a> by China experts Qi Qin and Lauri Myllyvirta found that coal\u2019s share of the country\u2019s power generation fell from 73% in 2016 to 51% in June this year. This happened as it continued to build new coal plants for a simple reason \u2013 it doesn\u2019t run them at anything like capacity.<\/p>\n A significant moment came earlier this year when China\u2019s national emissions fell for the first time, dropping 1% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier<\/a>. Beijing needs to do much more if it is to meet its commitment under the Paris deal. Its next five-year plan for economic development, due this year, will be crucial.<\/p>\n Dirty car sales are down<\/p>\n According to Our World in Data<\/a>, global sales of internal combustion engine cars \u2013 which run solely on petrol or diesel \u2013 peaked in 2016 at 80.47m. Electric and plug-in hybrid car sales in that year were just 780,000.<\/p>\n Last year, sales of dirty cars were 62.05m, a 23% fall. Electric and plug-in hybrid car sales had increased to 17.5m.<\/p>\n Put another way, nearly a decade ago only one in every 100 cars sold across the globe was electric. Now it is more than one in five. Elon Musk\u2019s extraordinary self-own in damaging Tesla\u2019s reputation<\/a> may dent the pace of growth but it won\u2019t stop it. China has little time or need for Teslas and is home to more than 60% of global EV sales.<\/p>\n Still a mountain to climb<\/p>\n None of this is to understate the scale of the problem. This column has reported before<\/a> on the big step-up in global heating since June 2023. Averaged across the globe, every day in 2024 was at least 1.25C hotter than preindustrial levels, and three-quarters were 1.5C hotter.<\/p>\n