Is it good news for the climate, or bad? The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported recently that additions of global renewable energy capacity reached an all-time record of 582 GW during 2024. The biggest annual increase ever.

Yet this figure isn’t anywhere near big enough to put the world on track to the short-term target of tripling total renewable capacity to 11 TW by 2030 – as agreed at COP28 in the UAE in 2023. Meeting the COP28 target would require annual growth of around 1,100 GW, every year for five years – nearly double what was achieved last year. So far, it’s not working.

What’s needed, says IRENA, is for countries to integrate renewables targets into national climate plans and for the world to double investment in renewable energy projects. The private sector is doing its bit – providing much of the investment required to date, and the renewables industry is stepping up to build new solar and wind energy projects aplenty. What’s missing is long-term government plans to drive considerably more progress on generation projects, storage and grid upgrades.

Something to be debated at COP30 next month in Brazil, no doubt.  

Let’s look at some ‘good news.’ A couple of weeks earlier, the influential campaigning group Ember updated the IRENA figures with a look at the first half of this year. Its report said that record solar growth and steady wind expansion are indeed reshaping the global power mix. And that new solar and wind power projects were sufficient to meet last year’s growth global electricity demand, leading to small overall falls in fossil fuelled generation. 

These are the first signs of a crucial turning point, said Ember, suggesting that as renewables capacity rises outstrip energy demand, then fossil fuel generation must decline. But – see IRENA above – probably nowhere near fast enough.

More ‘bad news’? Management consultant McKinsey reported a couple of weeks ago that the global energy transition may be losing momentum – as governments increasingly emphasise energy affordability, as opposed to sustainability, in a world full of uncertainty and crisis. Might those record renewables growth figures from last year turn out to be high water marks?

The energy transition is no less urgent than it was, added McKinsey, but pathways toward closing the gap to Paris Agreement targets are more complicated these days. Also it acknowledged that different countries and regions will follow their own trajectories based on their own local economic conditions. Countries are at very different stages of their energy transitions.

The Ember report contained one surprise element. While, it said, that the world’s four leading economies – China, India the US and the EU – continue to shape the global transition, China and India both saw fossil fuel generation fall during the first half of this year, while more fossil power was used in the US and EU.

This goes against prevailing, but outdated, wisdom that Europe and the US are the ‘good guys’ on climate action, while many Asian countries are still developing their energy infrastructure; with emissions cuts to come later.

These are the first signs of a crucial turning point, said Ember, suggesting that as renewables capacity rises outstrip energy demand, then fossil fuel generation must decline. But – see IRENA above – probably nowhere near fast enough.

Instead, US energy demand growth outpaced clean power additions in the first half of this year, leading to higher gas and coal generation, says Ember. And weaker wind and hydro output led to higher gas and coal generation across Europe. Meanwhile, China’s new renewables helped cut fossil fuel generation by 2%, and clean energy additions in India were three times the growth in energy demand in the same period.

Everything changes, as they say. And it has long been true that, while China is the still largest developer of new coal-burning plants, it is also by far the world leader in clean energy growth. Earlier this month China, also the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, surprised many by announcing an ambitious target to cut its emissions by 7–10% by 2035, with a continuing expansion of wind and solar power.

In these days of sustainable energy policy losing favour in the US – which is no longer party to the Paris Agreement and is not expected to attend COP30 – is China is about to take over as the world’s climate leader? And would this prove a force for good? Big questions.

Nevertheless, announcing his county’s new greenhouse gas reduction target, China’s President Xi Jinping said that: ‘Green and low-carbon transition is the trend of our time… the international community should stay focused on the right direction, remain unwavering in confidence, unremitting in actions and unrelenting in intensity.’

The views and opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author only and are not necessarily given or endorsed by or on behalf of the Energy Institute.

• Further reading: In ‘COP 28: We took a stand, now we need to act’ Special Envoy for Energy and Executive President of the Brazilian Wind Energy and New Technologies Association (ABEEólica) looks forward to COP30.
• ‘What did COP29 achieve for climate finance?’ explores the results of the 2024 event in Kazakstan.