Ten years on from the Paris climate summit and the global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, while there were failures, there have also been successes. According to an article in the Guardian, “renewable energy smashed records last year, growing by 15% and accounting for more than 90% of all new power generation capacity”, “investment in clean energy topped $2tn, outstripping that into fossil fuels by two to one” and “low-carbon power makes up more than half of the generation capacity of China and India”. At the same time, “electric vehicles now account for about a fifth of new cars sold around the world”.
But on the other side, the less than enthusiastic response to the Paris agreement from some key countries immediately after the summit has added to the climate crisis we now face, as has the failure of some rich governments to uphold their side of the bargain with poorer nations.
The Guardian describes the last 10 years of climate politics as “forward leaps followed by backsliding”, the biggest blow to the agreement being Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the pact in 2017, and the knock-on to China, where, in the same year, coal-fired power ramped up, and carbon output with it, reaching 12.3bn tonnes last year.
“We’ve made progress as a world, but we also know that is far short of what we agreed at Paris,” said Ed Miliband, UK energy secretary. “You’re trying to get 193 countries to agree to these big fundamental questions about the trajectory of their economies, their societies, the way their energy systems work. No wonder it’s difficult.”
Read the full article in the Guardian here.