Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

One point curious in its omission is whether the growth of renewables outpaces the depletion of our carbon budget. Presumably that’s the critical metric in all of this.

[Edit: I ran this question through ChatGPT and the initial (unvalidated) response wasn’t so exciting. This obviously put a dampener on my mood. And I wondered why people like McKibben only talk about the upside. It can sometimes feel a bit like Kayfabe, playing with the the reader’s emotions. And like my old man says: if someone tells you about pros and cons, they’re an advisor. If someone tells you only about pros, they’re a salesman.]

I'm not sure I understand. There's no carbon budget, any carbon that we emit is carbon we'll have to re-capture somehow and the longer it stays in the atmosphere the longer it will have a heating effect.

I think renewable have accelerated to the point of matching the electricity growth worldwide: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by...

We've also passed the peak of CO2 per capita, but since the population is still growing we are still increasing carbon emitions worldwide. It's going to be a while before we stop emitting anything, and then longer before we start re-absorbing it...