From the way the public conversation was going, you might think renewable energy was firmly on the back foot as a result of the energy crisis that’s roiled the world since late last year.
Transport fuel taxes have been cut to ease the pain of high crude prices in the European Union, India, the U.K. and U.S., among other countries. Europe’s power plants burned 51% more coal in early March than they did a year earlier. China’s rush to use more coal after power cuts last year was even more dramatic: The country mined 687 million metric tons of solid fuel in January and February, equivalent to nearly two years of European coal consumption and a third more than in the same period of 2019.
That’s troubling, considering the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s warning last week that carbon pollution must peak by 2025 if the world is to avoid catastrophic global warming.
