Experts have hailed a “critical turning point” as renewable power generated a record-breaking 30% of the world’s electricity last year, new data has found.
It raises hopes that the peaking of global greenhouse gas emissions is on the horizon.
But there are concerns many countries are being held up in their switch to clean power because they cannot access the cash needed to fund it.
Last year’s renewable power “milestone” was driven by yet another booming year for wind and especially solar.
China, Brazil and the Netherlands led the way in terms of fast roll-outs, thinktank Ember said in its annual Global Electricity Review.
China alone accounted for 51% of new solar generation and 60% of new wind, even as it continued to build vast amounts of new coal power too.
Christiana Figueres, former United Nations climate chief, called 2023 a “critical turning point”.
She said “outdated” fossil fuels now can’t compete with the “exponential innovations and declining cost curves in renewable energy and storage”.
“All of humanity and the planet upon which we depend will be better off for it,” she added.
In the last two decades, solar and wind have defied expectations and grown far faster than expected, surging from just 0.2% of global power generation in 2000 to 13.4% in 2023.
Dave Jones, Ember’s head of global insights, said the huge growth was due to “matured” policies and technologies and a plummet in costs.
The cost of solar power halved last year despite a surge in demand, thanks to an explosion in manufacturing capacity.
Meanwhile problems that had held up wind power – such as inflationary costs – began to resolve, unlocking more projects.
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China ramps up coal power despite pledge to control it
A ‘genuinely ambitious’ renewables target
At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai last year leaders pledged to triple renewable power capacity by 2030.
The “genuinely ambitious” target shows leaders are backing renewables, which are the “main tools that we have in the box today to deliver the big emissions reductions we need”, rather than riskier technology, such as that to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Mr Jones said.
Ember suggests the global burning of fossil fuels in the power sector probably peaked in 2023 and will start to fall this year, along with the pollution and emissions they bring.
As the power sector accounts for the largest share of global emissions, that means global emissions could start to fall soon too.
That is good news for curbing climate change, although scientists have repeatedly warned that emissions are not falling fast enough to limit global warming to agreed safer levels.
Mr Jones said the pace of emissions falls “depends on how fast the renewables revolution continues”.
Joab Okanda, a senior adviser for Christian Aid, based in Kenya, said the roll-out would be “so much faster with the right investment” in African nations, which often face much higher borrowing costs than other countries.
Hanan Morsy, deputy executive secretary and chief economist at the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa, said the continent holds “big potential in renewable energy”.
“Yet a dismally small share of less than 2% of global renewable energy investments are made on the continent. The continent can’t develop further without access to energy.”
He called for financial reforms to bring in affordable and new types of funding.
Financing the clean transition in developing nations, which have typically contributed the least to climate change, will be a key issue at this year’s UN climate summit, COP29 in Azerbaijan.
Business
Asian stock markets tumble – with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index suffering worst fall for 28 years
Asian stock markets have fallen dramatically amid escalating fears of a global trade war – as Donald Trump called his tariffs “medicine” and showed no sign of backing down.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index of shares closed down 13.2% – its biggest drop since 1997, while the Shanghai composite index lost 7.3% – the worst fall there since 2020.
Taiwan’s stock market was also hammered, losing nearly 10% on Monday, its biggest one-day drop on record.
Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 7.8%, while London’s FTSE 100 was down 4.85% by 9am.
Tariffs latest – FTSE falls after Asian markets tumble
US stock market futures signalled further losses were ahead when trading begins in America later.
At 4am EST, the S&P 500 futures was down 4.93%, the Dow Jones 4.32% and the Nasdaq 5.33%.
Markets are reacting to ongoing uncertainty over the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on goods imported to the US, which he announced last week.
A screen showing the Hang Seng index in central Hong Kong. Pic: Reuters
Speaking on Air Force One on Sunday, Mr Trump said foreign governments would have to pay “a lot of money” to lift his tariffs.
“I don’t want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said.
The US president said world leaders were trying to convince him to lower further tariffs, which are due to take effect this week.
“I spoke to a lot of leaders, European, Asian, from all over the world,” Mr Trump told reporters.
“They’re dying to make a deal. And I said, we’re not going to have deficits with your country.
“We’re not going to do that because to me, a deficit is a loss. We’re going to have surpluses or, at worst, going to be breaking even.”
Mr Trump, who spent much of the weekend playing golf in Florida, posted on his Truth Social platform: “WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy.”
President Trump believes his policy will make the US richer, forcing companies to relocate more manufacturing to America and creating jobs.
However, his announcement has shocked stock markets, triggered retaliatory levies from China and sparked fears of a global trade war.
US customs agents began collecting Mr Trump’s baseline 10% tariff on Saturday.
Higher “reciprocal” tariffs of between 11% and 50% – depending on the country – are due to kick in on Wednesday.
Investors and world leaders are unsure whether the US tariffs are here to stay or a negotiating tactic to win concessions from other countries.
Richard Flax, chief investment officer at wealth manager Moneyfarm, said: “I guess there was some hope over the weekend that maybe we would see this as part of the start of a negotiation.
“But the messages that we’ve so far seen suggest that the President Trump is comfortable with the market reaction and that he’s going to continue on this course.
Goldman Sachs has raised the odds of a US recession to 45%, joining other investment banks that have also revised their forecasts.
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In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer has promised “bold changes” and said he would relax rules around electric vehicles as British carmakers deal with a new 25% US tariff on vehicles.
The prime minister said “global trade is being transformed” by President Trump’s actions.
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KPMG has warned tariffs on UK exports could see GDP growth fall to 0.8% in 2025 and 2026.
The accountancy firm said higher tariffs on specific categories, such as cars, aluminium and steel, would more than offset the exemption on pharmaceutical exports, leaving the effective tariff rate around 12%.
Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said: “Given the economic impact that tariffs would cause, there is a strong incentive to seek a negotiated settlement that diminishes the need for tariffs.
“The UK automotive manufacturing sector is particularly exposed given the complex supply chains of some producers.”
Traders called this morning a complete bloodbath as the UK’s FTSE 100 joined world indexes in turning red as uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs continued to batter stock markets.
Across Asia and Europe, hundreds of billions have been wiped off companies’ values, particularly in banking and manufacturing.
The cause is not just the imposition of those tariffs (the largest the US has inflicted since the 1930s) and the very obvious drag this will have on global trade and growth, but also the uncertainty of ‘what next?’.
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Investors cannot work out if the Trump administration is genuinely wedded to tariffs on this scale, on the proviso that they will help re-shore companies and millions of jobs to the United States.
They don’t know if they are permanent or merely part of a negotiating tactic to address trade imbalances, and for America to use its economic heft to strike better deals.
If Mr Trump is open to deals (the first test comes later in a meeting with the Israeli prime minister), markets will calm, even if the midst of uncertainty hasn’t fully cleared.
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Time to change tactics with Trump?
However, if this is a genuine rewiring of global trade and the end of globalisation as we know it, markets and economies will continue to get battered.
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As one Trump supporter, billionaire Bill Ackman – who opposes the tariffs – put it, President Trump has launched a “global economic war against the whole world” that will usher in an “economic nuclear winter.”
It’s time for all of us to buckle up.
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