Clean energy investment has overtaken fossil fuels
Ten years ago roughly five times as much was spent on oil production globally as on new solar power capacity. This year solar investment is set to exceed investment in oil production for the first time in a landmark for clean energy that the head of the International Energy Agency says could keep alive the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. All told, $1.7 trillion will be spent this year on clean energy production, the IEA’s Fatih Birol told the FT, compared with $1.1 trillion on fossil fuels. Energy-related carbon emissions are still going up, but Birol calls the hockey-stick growth of Big Solar a “dramatic, striking shift”. Note: most of it is happening in China. The IEA’s annual World Energy Investment report was published yesterday.
Photograph Xu Weijie/VCG via Getty Images