Even if progress does continue, it is not going to produce emission reductions that will meet the target of keeping overall warming as low as 1.5°C.
Over the same period the share of primary energy provided as electricity by modern renewables—wind turbines and solar panels—rose from nothing to 3%. The share provided by nuclear power, which is also generated without fossil fuels, fell from 5.4% to 4%. Hydroelectricity was more or less stable at 6%.
The process can be speeded up further by the simple expedient of making fossil fuels more expensive. Carbon pricing has not, so far, had the traction that economists would wish for it. Most fossil-fuel users do not pay a carbon tax; nor are they subject to a cap-and-trade system of COemission permits. But in one of the world’s largest economies, the European Union, electricity generators and an increasing number of other businesses face real costs for burning fossil fuels.
Cheap renewables and the willingness to pay for their installation; the electrification of ever more aspects of daily life; the clear efficacy of carbon pricing; a new seriousness about short-lived climate forcers: they all make action on climate change look easier today than it did 12 years ago, when the meant-to-be-momentous Copenhagen climate summit ended in disarray and disagreement, and also a good bit easier than it did six years ago in Paris.
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