It’s unstoppable. But it could go faster…
I mean, why is China investing so heavily into renewables? Not because they want to do good for the planet and from the goodness of their hearts. It’s the cheapest energy source there is, and it could not give less fucks about some global crisis.
So please, EU, put the pedal to the metal.
Chinese investment in renewables so far means they grow renewables while also growing coal. Between 80 and 100 gigawatts of coal production were added in 2025. Unfortunately, coal and gas production is steadily increasing worldwide. Contrast G7 trying to improve own living standard by reducing fossil usage locally, with G20 trying to fast-forward economic growth by any means available. Wind and solar grow fast, but they add to total production, rather than phase out fossils, almost everywhere outside EU. Source is the same, just a different page: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by-source
Global North can’t pretend to be green itself while still externalizing harmful production and growing trade with countries ruled by people who don’t care about resource depletion and the planet remaining livable. I think there’s no alternative to focusing on producing locally (adhering to own democratic regulations, labor union negotiations etc) while implementing degrowth policies, both helping other countries do likewise and putting pressure on them to do so through trade measures.
China’s carbon emissions fell in 2025. I don’t know about coal capacity.
Its preparation for Taiwan. The Sun is not affected by a US naval blockade.
I mean, why is China investing so heavily into renewables? Not because they want to do good for the planet and from the goodness of their hearts.
Parts of China are unbreathable.
Parts of the US were also unbreathable before the EPA and we are heading back to smog days.
Just think about how hard the current energy crisis would hit us if we still would produce hundred percent of our electricity with fossil fuels.
Just think about Iran being able to deal with protests, without the oil money funding the government. It is also not just Iran.
Coal enters the chat.
It’s dirty but it’s cheap. So if price and supply are the main worries, coal would be an excellent option.
Congrats! India also hit their target of half of their electricity coming from renewables middle of last year - five years ahead of their 2030 target according to the Paris agreement. Love to hear news like this!
The data seems a bit contradictory 😐
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?country=IND
You’re right India’s milestone relates to infrastructure ie. installed capacity. There was a period in July 2025 where 50% of India’s electricity came from renewables but on a regular day the split is 70/30 coal/oil to renewables. India is still very much in a emerging stage and essentially every nation in human history that grew past this stage relied on coal to do so unfortunately. Hopefully India and other emerging markets can use significantly less than Western countries did, now that we know of the climate impact. Thank you for the clarification!
Charts that show total energy produced are pretty pointless in an age of summer-day overproduction.
I would love to see this data in the form of “percentage of needs met”.
Similarly, electricity is only a small part of all energy use, so while its nice to see the line go up, we should remember it’s not the right statistic AND the line for all fossil fuels should be about three times higher.
Always a good time to remind everybody who has money: where money goes energy flows.
In Germany there are great ways to invest into the Energy transition. By the way the article isn’t translated into english.
No thanks to Germany.
Right… the country that basically brought solar to the point of cheap mass production years ago while also having double the average EU renewable share in their energy mix is the bad one…
… in some alternate reality produced by propaganda-induced brain-damage.
No need to insult me with cheap shots.
I’m referring to the changes made by the energy ministry.
But sure, let’s call me brain damaged.
You too have a good day pal.
Why? They have well above the average of renewables?
That’s right, but our energy ministry (Mrs. Reiche) is currently working on correcting that.
I should clarify my comment, that’s where I was aiming. Thanks.
Congratulations!
It’s also too late, but hey, at this point; nice try
It’s not too late. We should do everything we can to lessen the impact
I always wonder: too late for what?
Everybody dying? We’ll all eventually do…
Changing our society and earth to be more healthy? Well, let’s just do it. It’s fun.
Playing with power, learning about batteries, vegan food, open source software and the menstrual cycle are interesting. Be open, learn from your surrounding and try to improve it where you can. As I said: it is hella fun.
It’s too late or not too late depending on what outcome you’re aiming for.
The outcome “everything will be fine” has come and gone long ago. Best we can hope for is limiting the amount of digits used to write down the casualties now, lessen the impact. Yay. Sorry for my lack of enthusiasm on this but I’ve spent 5 decades watching this. 5 decades ago I was already aware of climate change. Humanity was aware for over 120 years already!
And what have we done to lessen the impact?
You’d expect me to say “zero” but that would be wrong. We made it worse. Year after year. Remember those Paris climate accords that had zero binding resolutions, so was for nothing anyways?
Yeah, not only did no country do anything at all, pretty much every country increased their carbon emissions since. They didn’t lower it insufficiently, no, they fucking. Made. It. Worse…
Which at least was within my expectations because back then I was on Reddit and wrote about those accords that the result would be that by now things actually were accelerating instead of slowing down.
I was told by kind strangers like you that I was a doomer and that it wasn’t too late and that we needed to lessen impact and…
I’ve heard all of this hundreds of times before and I can tell you, for as long as we allow billionaires and dictators to exist, we ARE doomed.
Even if humanity starts today working aggressively to lower CO2 emissions, it’s still a big question if and how many of us will be able to yo survive.
But humanity ain’t doing shit, ever, billionaires will make sure of that because they need their money.
So pardon my cynicism, pardon my anger and doomsday thinking but we as a species with around 8 or so billion members, allowed a tiny sliver of psychopaths, a few tens of thousands or so, to fuck all of us over for good. We are possibly the only place in the universe with life, let alone “intelligent” life, and we have allowed a tiny group to destroy that forever.
And I have to be optimistic?
How?
