As emissions proceed to rise and governments fail to reply with something just like the urgency required, it’s tempting to conclude that the prospects for a habitable planet are rising dim.
However as spring arrives, there may be one putting spark of sunshine. Daylight, to be exact – captured on photo voltaic panels and pumping out electrons down the wires, on a scale unimaginable even a decade in the past.
The quantity of photo voltaic put in worldwide doubled between 2022 and 2024 alone. Within the first three quarters of 2025, it accounted for 83% of all new electricity-generating capability. Key to that is the persevering with collapse in prices, which have fallen by near 90% per kWh in simply the final decade. Crucially, the price of batteries – important for storing the ability generated – has plunged by an analogous quantity in that point.
Over an extended interval, the vertiginous fall in photo voltaic’s prices is unprecedented for any power know-how: in 1975, it was $100 (£75) per watt. Immediately it’s simply $0.20 (£0.15) – a fall of 99.8%. It was once nearly the costliest means conceivable of producing energy. Now, for a lot of the world, it’s the least expensive.
It’s not simply affordability that’s boosting photo voltaic, however alacrity, too. In 2004, it usually took a 12 months to put in a gigawatt (GW) of solar energy (an quantity roughly equal to the capability of a nuclear reactor or one of many bigger gas-fired energy vegetation). In 2016, that had come all the way down to per week. By 2023, it took simply 24 hours. And it’s nonetheless falling.
In his new guide, Right here Comes the Solar, veteran environmentalist Invoice McKibben highlights a few of the penalties of this double whammy in value and tempo. In Pakistan alone, to offer one instance, sufficient photo voltaic has been put in within the final 18 months to account for one-third of the nation’s present grid capability.
Mixed with related, if much less dramatic, falls in the price of wind energy (down 80% in a decade), these traits clarify why, as of this 12 months, renewables are actually rising quick sufficient to exceed all new international electrical energy demand, and are already producing extra power than coal.
Within the UK, renewables now meet 37% of our wants, in comparison with 35% from fossil fuels. Certain, the latter nonetheless delivers over half the world’s electrical energy, however their share is beginning to shrink. Donald Trump might proceed to “dig coal” and rail towards the “stupidity” of wind and photo voltaic, however with regards to new energy sources, the power markets are trumping Trump, all whereas his struggle in Iran provides contemporary urgency to the renewable power transition.
This has a direct knock-on impact on the prospect for curbing carbon emissions. Globally, these are nonetheless on the rise – albeit fractionally. However a shift is underneath means, and no extra strikingly so than the world’s greatest emitter – China. It could be infamous for its massive variety of coal vegetation, but it surely’s additionally a world chief in renewables. It added almost 400GW of photo voltaic and wind capability in 2025 – as a lot as the remainder of the world mixed.
In 2004, it took a 12 months to put in a gigawatt of solar energy. By 2023 it took simply 24 hours, and it’s nonetheless falling
Together with industrial effectivity enhancements, this explains why analysts now imagine the nation’s carbon emissions are flatlining and even beginning to decline – regardless of rising electrical energy demand. And if China, the world’s manufacturing unit, can obtain that specific elusive feat of ‘decoupling’, then anybody can.
It’s no coincidence that it’s additionally main the best way on the electrification of its huge transport toes. One in two automobiles now offered in China is electrical. And EVs’ rising market share is now being mirrored elsewhere, together with within the UK, the place the determine is one in 4 – and rising. By comparability, petrol automotive registrations are down by 1 / 4 12 months on 12 months.
Since energy and transport mixed account for a hefty share of world carbon emissions, the traits underneath means right here supply an unmistakable ray of hope amid more and more critical local weather warnings. There’s a mountain nonetheless to climb, however at the least there’s a path to the summit.
Martin Wright is a director of Optimistic Information
Fundamental picture: Shutterstock
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