Don’t Look Now, but the Green Transition Is Still Happening

By David Wallace-Wells

In January, a total of seven gas-powered cars were sold in all of Norway. This year, Pakistan expects that parts of the country will get more electricity from decentralized rooftop solar than from its entire electricity grid during parts of the day. In the United States, where we often tell ourselves we are in the grips of climate backlash and fossil fuel retrenchment, Texas has been setting new solar records through frigid February, around 90 percent of all new power capacity installed anywhere in the nation last year was green, and the share of renewables is expected to be even higher next year. The new “breakout star” of the battery world is the notorious petrostate Saudi Arabia, the countries with the biggest growth in solar power are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, and Australia’s breakneck pursuit of clean energy too cheap to meter is so far along that electricity prices in some regions have fallen by a third in a single year. Parts of the country have announced that they will be giving away electricity for free........

© The New York Times