The rapid progress of renewables is barely treading water next to increases in demand.
Global fossil fuel consumption has still increased despite lots of that new solar and wind capacity added over the last few years.
The way i see the data renewables are going to have to speed up quite a bit faster to actually start replacing fossil fuels in a significant way. But problem is the fossil fuels will then just get cheap and people will find new or increased other uses for them - so the emissions will probably still happen from one source or another however many solar panels get added.
Oil, and to a lesser extent natural gas, are such a convenient source, store and means of transporting energy that no way are all humans going to leave it underground or put it back down there.
lol
The rapid progress of renewables is barely treading water next to increases in demand. Global fossil fuel consumption has still increased despite lots of that new solar and wind capacity added over the last few years.
The way i see the data renewables are going to have to speed up quite a bit faster to actually start replacing fossil fuels in a significant way. But problem is the fossil fuels will then just get cheap and people will find new or increased other uses for them - so the emissions will probably still happen from one source or another however many solar panels get added.
Oil, and to a lesser extent natural gas, are such a convenient source, store and means of transporting energy that no way are all humans going to leave it underground or put it back down there.
The best proven method to reduce GHG emissions seems to be widespread economic recession (demand reduction) - but the bounce back has been pretty quick after 2008 and 2020 - so it’s not all that beneficial in the medium to long term. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/annual-change-in-energy-related-co2-emissions-1900-2024