The IPCC’s latest report is real and the conclusion is therefore unmistakable: the climate crisis is not a distant future occurrence but is happening now.
There have never been good excuses to delay action on climate, but the excuses that were made are even less valid now.
Zero-emission technologies such as solar, wind, EVs and heat pumps are not only cleaner than the dirty, outdated technologies that they replace — both in terms of climate impacts and reduced air pollution.
In many cases they perform better, create more jobs, last longer, and increasingly are less expensive. Costs for wind and solar have come down between 60%–80% since 2010, and battery costs have come down 85% in the same time period.
Of course, it is not enough to build a new clean energy economy. It is now clear that we must also more quickly retire carbon intensive assets, well ahead of the end of their economic life.
Coal plants must be rapidly shut down, fossil fuel subsidies must end immediately, and no new fossil fuel infrastructure can be built — Yes, assets will be stranded, but in the face of catastrophe the realistic response is: “so be it.”
We are in the race of our lives, to see if clean solutions can scale and dirty systems can be shut down fast enough to radically reduce emissions across the entire global economy before the climate equilibrium is permanently disrupted.
This is a timed test that we only get to take once, and there is no greater single challenge for this decade. Without a stable, habitable planet, nothing else will work.
Reference- IPCC Report, The Guardian, Forbes, Clean Technica, IRENA, Climate Central