This is very promising & is cause for optimism. But look, let's delve just a little bit deeper and you can see that these numbers mask a widening gap between actions and what we must do to avoid dangerous warming. A
https://twitter.com/tveitdal/status/1392016195730255872
The IEA has a history of underestimating wind and solar deployment rates. What's behind this latest revision is the big leap in China where wind & solar has taken off even without subsidies. Excellent news. But...
At the same time, China is building yet more coal fired power stations. The deployment of wind & solar is not replacing fossil fuel energy infrastructure - it's adding to it. Driving that is China's extraordinary growth in energy & material consumption.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissions-china-goes-on-a-coal-spree
India has also seen something of a renewables surge along with very strong coal use. There is some talk about Indian coal use peaking, but I don't see any assessments that conclude it will be significantly reducing soon.
https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/300058/coal-use-set-to-surge-in-india-despite-renewables-boom/
China & India argue that they must continue to rapidly increase energy generation & material use as so many of their citizens live in poverty. The idea here is that rich developed nations must decarbonise faster to allow developing nations to catch up.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-why-differentiation-is-key-to-unlocking-paris-climate-deal
This also recognises that rich developed nations have put most of the CO2 in the atmosphere & so are most responsible for the climate change problem. For years rich nations have been attempting to avoid paying for the damage they produced.
https://unfccc.int/topics/adaptation-and-resilience/workstreams/approaches-to-address-loss-and-damage-associated-with-climate-change-impacts-in-developing-countries
What all this means is that despite today's good news, humanity is still hurtling towards dangerous climate change. The only thing that is going to change that is very fast cuts to fossil fuel use now. Not in 30 years time.
https://climateanalytics.org/briefings/carbon-budgets-for-the-15c-limit/
This situation will not change if we continue to pursue growth above all everything else. As
@JKSteinberger et al have shown, we already have enough resources to ensure everyone can enjoy a good life.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307512
Ultimately, climate change is a resource distribution problem, not a resource generation problem. Until we recognise that I fear we will all be marching ever faster towards disaster. END
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