Title photo: A wind turbine farm in the Greek mountains.
Click on the links below to learn more about the five main sources of renewable power. Scroll down to read how renewable energy on its own won't stop global warming in the short term.
Figure 1
Figure 2
OurWorldinData.org Licensed under CC-BY by authords Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser
Is renewable energy the world's only escape route from climate change? A quick glance at Fig. 2 tells you that without question, the rapid transition to renewable energy must be every country's priority.
Research in the last ten years, however, has shown that renewable isn't a quick fix, even if every fossil fuel power plant was shut down today and replaced with renewable plants. Much of the anthropogenic CO2 already released over the last 170 years is going to hang around in the atmosphere for thousands of years. The atmosphere, therefore, will continue to warm and as it does so, the oceans, which have already absorbed billions of tonnes of CO2, will also warm causing it to release some of that CO2. Scientists are trying to calculate the lag time between cutting all fossil-fuel emissions and the effect this will have on the Keeling Curve (CO2 in the atmosphere).
I won't put a figure on that lag, except to say it's years.
The problem here is that there's not a snowball's chance in hell that Homo sapiens is going to meet the UN's 2030 emissions target - a 50% reduction. It's the mantra of every climate scientist who understands perfectly the future we are creating for our children and every future generation beyond, a mantra that goes unheeded by politicians around the world. We are decades away from closing every fossil fuel power plant. The soaring demand for energy in China, India, US, Indonesia and a host of other countries cannot be met by renewable - yet. The capacity has not been installed into their energy grids. Moreover, some forms of renewable are unreliable as the US and China discovered in 2022 and 2023 when severe drought cut generation from their hydropower plants drastically.
But make no mistake - renewable energy is the escape route. 30% of the world's electricity in 2003 was produced from solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, geothermal energy and biofuels. It's a start. But if we're going to avoid +3°C, then we can't wait for renewables to kick in. We have to remove some of the CO2 that we've added to the atmosphere. We have to increase the planet's CO2 sink. There are currently three sinks: the oceans, plants and soil. Some might argue that carbon capture is a fourth sink but right now, it's expensive, inefficient, and doesn't capture enough emissions to make a significant difference.
Oceans have been described as man's best friend, absorbing around 50% of our carbon emissions. But as they warm up, their capacity to absorb gases is dropping. The answer is trees. Billions of them. We urgently need to plant every available hectare of the planet with trees. Afforestation on a scale never previously imagined working alongside the emergency prioritisation of renewable energy by all 195 countries. Then we might.....just might avoid +3°C.