Editor’s note: Last week, the United Nations’ climate chief called the global transition away from fossil fuels “unstoppable,” despite the United States’ recent turn away from the fight against climate change under President Trump.
That transition is the focus of the revamped version of The Climate Fix. Twice a month on Fridays, we’ll bring you original reporting and news of the most important — and most ambitious — solutions to fighting climate change across the world.
We’ll report on technological breakthroughs, legal developments, new policies, new business models and new companies, as well as local climate efforts. We’ll tell you what’s new, what has promise and we’ll take a critical eye to each approach.
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This week, top officials from dozens of African countries convened with major international lenders to commit to the biggest rollout of renewable energy in the continent’s history.
The $35 billion in loans from The World Bank, African Development Bank and other financial institutions, at below-market interest rates, are aimed at getting electricity to half of the 600 million Africans without it. About half the money will go toward village-level solar grids.
It wasn’t just a hopeful moment for people who’ve been deprived of the most foundational facet of modern life. It’s a moment that could have enormous climate implications.
And yet, the words “climate change” were barely uttered at the two-day summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
One moment encapsulated the dynamic. Akinwumi Adesina, head of the African Development Bank, was onstage on Monday speaking to the assembled leaders. He pointed into the crowd, picking out Mukhtar Babayev, the Azerbaijani official who was president of last year’s United Nations climate summit, known as COP.
“You all talk about energy transition,” he said, animatedly. “Our women are transitioning life! Right out of life! Because of the lack of power, they are cooking with charcoal inside their houses and they are dying!”
The language of climate-change solutions
The reason for the omission of climate change from this summit gets to the heart of a rich-world-poor-world divide on the politics — and language — of climate. And as I reported this week, it also tells a story of how solar power is becoming an unstoppable force in the global energy sector.
First off, though: It really matters where developing countries get their energy. Most future greenhouse gas emissions will come from China, India and Africa. Their mix of energy sources will decide the climate’s future as much as the Europe and the United States’ historical emissions have led us to our precarious present.
Right now, if you don’t have electricity in Africa and are trying to run a business, you most likely burn high-emitting diesel to run a generator. As the continent develops, however slowly, its leaders have long argued that they should be allowed to exploit the fossil fuels that they have in abundance. And they are both producing and importing them. Three-quarters of grid electricity in Africa is derived from fossil fuels, compared to 60 percent in the U.S.
Powering the developing world’s growth
Africa is yearning to grow. Over the next decade, hundreds of millions of Africans will need jobs that don’t currently exist. In many countries, societal collapse is not just a worry, it is an ongoing disaster that scores of people will do anything to escape from. Expanding electricity access is one of the surest ways to start strengthening Africa’s long hobbled and exploited economies.
So, back to why climate change barely got a shout-out at a conference with such obvious climate implications.
With the blame for climate change lying undeniably at the feet of Africa’s former colonizers, and with the United States, which has just elected a leader who has called climate change a hoax, Africa’s leaders are done crowing about the issue. They know the developed world is not acting fast enough to enact durable solutions to the climate crisis.
Instead, they want investment and development. They want it affordably, and they want it as soon as possible. They want to avoid further instability as population growth remains high.
China saw that coming, not just in Africa but around the developing world. The solar-energy industry China built over the past decade — a sector China now completely dominates — has enabled lenders like the World Bank to confidently say at summits like this week’s in Tanzania that solar is what will bring Africans energy quickest and at least cost.
Why, then, even mention climate change as anything but a bonus? It’s just business.
More climate fix news
The year in investment: Global investment in low-carbon technology hit a record $2.1 trillion last year, per a new report from BloombergNEF, a research firm. That’s an 11 percent increase over last year. China dominated spending, investing $828 billion in overall, up 23 percent over 2023.
Electrified transport, including electric vehicles, was the biggest investment category with $757 billion spent last year, followed by renewable energy at $728 billion.
Electrification: Heat pumps are outselling gas furnaces in the United States again, according to Canary Media. “Americans bought 37 percent more air-source heat pumps than the next-most-popular heating appliance, gas furnaces, during the first 11 months of the year,” according to industry data cited by the publication.
China: The Associated Press notes that China hit its goal of having 1,200 gigawatts of energy from renewables by 2030 six years early. And China’s fossil fuel power output may fall in 2025 for the first time a decade, Reuters reports.
Officials in China have said little about their plans to build the world’s largest hydropower dam high up in the Tibetan plateau on the border with India, The Times reports, there are concerns about seismic activity in the area.
Renewables: For the first time, Europe generated more power from solar than from coal, according to a report from Ember, an energy think tank.
Outside of China, the fastest growing region for renewables is the Middle East, where oil-rich nations are pouring billions into solar, per The Financial Times.
E.V.s.: Battery-powered cars are lasting as long as traditional gas- and diesel-fueled cars in the U.K., according to a study highlighted by The Guardian.
In a bid to compete with China, the Europe Union is planning a subsidy for electric vehicles, The Financial Times reports.
Waste: Officials in Miami-Dade County, Fla., are considering building a giant trash-burning facility, The Washington Post Reports. “If built, it would be the biggest incinerator in the United States, potentially paving the way for other cities and counties to adopt a waste-management method that some scientists say is the least bad option to deal with trash that can’t be recycled or composted,” the paper reports.
Energy projects: As Climate Forward reported this week, fusion startup Helion Energy said it had raised $425 million, bringing its total fund-raising to more than $1 billion.
New York State’s biggest solar farm got $950 million in funding, Bloomberg reports. It’s expected to be finished in 2026 and could power 120,000 homes.
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