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'Unstoppable force' of solar power propels world to 40% clean electricity

(news.sky.com)
177 points belter | 6 comments | 08 Apr 25 10:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.712s | source | bottom
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lm28469 ◴[08 Apr 25 16:16 UTC] No.43623434[source]▶
Daily reminder that fossils aren't decreasing and renewables are just added on top.

The only recent time fossil decreased was during covid, and even then it barely was a dent. To meet our climate goals we'd need something in the same vein as covid... constantly

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

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1. bryanlarsen ◴[08 Apr 25 16:37 UTC] No.43623688[source]▶
Per capita fossil fuel consumption has been dropping for ~10 years. 2025 will be the year where total CO2 emissions drop and continue to drop. They were hoping that 2024 would be that year, but 2024 GDP growth was higher than expected. The 2025 trump-cession guarantees that CO2 emissions will drop in 2025.

https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...

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2. sightbroke ◴[08 Apr 25 16:42 UTC] No.43623751[source]▶
> The 2025 trump-cession guarantees that CO2 emissions will drop in 2025.

I do not want to start a whole political tirade so the following is meant more as humor:

Wouldn't that be ironic. Trump's actions help curb global climate change and bankrupts billionaires.

3. lm28469 ◴[08 Apr 25 16:51 UTC] No.43623838[source]▶
> Per capita

I have another question then, does the planet care about "per capita" or about "total" emissions ?

Every few years they come up with the same fucking graph were the solid line goes straight up until "now" and the dotted line magically decreases in the close future and reach 0 in 50+ years, when none of us will be alive and accountable. meanwhile: https://climatanthropocene.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/co...

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4. kstrauser ◴[08 Apr 25 17:27 UTC] No.43624266[source]▶
> I have another question then, does the planet care about "per capita" or about "total" emissions ?

Assuming the number of humans don't drastically change from year to year, those are roughly proportional.

If per capita emissions drop by 2% and the population increases by 1%, it's still a win.

5. slaw ◴[08 Apr 25 17:37 UTC] No.43624372[source]▶
>The world's population is projected to continue growing for the next 50 to 60 years

https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population

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6. zahlman ◴[08 Apr 25 18:47 UTC] No.43625206[source]▶
Sure. But that population estimate is only something like 25% higher than today's population; the per capita decline with improvements in technology could be much more dramatic than that. Plus, the remaining increase in population is likely to be biased towards poorer parts of the world where per capita consumption is already lower. Parts of the world that haven't had a fossil-fueled industrial revolution by now shouldn't ever be expected to - they'll be able to leap-frog over those technologies.