World Appears on Track to Triple Renewable Power by 2030
World Appears on Track to Triple Renewable Power by 2030 - Yale E360
The Ivanpah solar plant in California's Mojave Desert. Pexels
At the forthcoming UN climate talks, diplomats will push for a tripling of renewable power by 2030. A new analysis finds the world is likely already on track to hit this goal.
Emissions must drop nearly in half by the end of this decade to have a shot at keeping warming to 1.5 degrees C. As part of that, analysts say, renewable capacity must roughly triple, growing from 3.4 terawatts last year to 11 terawatts in 2030. In recent weeks, diplomats from across the globe have called for setting this as a formal target at the upcoming UN climate negotiations, which begin Thursday in Dubai.
Renewable capacity has grown at a rate of 17 percent per year since 2016. Maintaining this pace through the end of the decade would put the world on course for 11 terawatts of renewable power, according to a new analysis from Ember, an energy think.
“Leaders should be confident in supporting a global goal to triple renewables,” said Katye Altieri, global analyst at Ember. “It is looking more possible than ever to achieve.”
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Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.