In many ways, this year was the tipping point for renewable energy. The world has woken up to the imperative of energy transition, and countries around the world have made progress on this front, albeit in different degrees. We take stock of their situation in this multi-part series.
Looking back from the future, 2023 could well prove the year of the tipping point when it comes to renewable energy.
Extreme climates across the globe – from wildfires across Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Algeria to drought in Latin America – drove home the point that the fallout from climate change was not just real, but, like objects in a rearview mirror, closer than we thought.
At the same time, news from the fossil fuel front remained bleak. The annual CO2 reading taken by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii in May – because that's the month in which CO2 levels peak in the Northern Hemisphere – showed CO2 levels rose three million parts per million over the previous year and hit a peak average of 424 parts per million. That is 50 percent above the onset of the industrial era.
That's the scenario in which the global push for renewable energy – or clean energy or green energy – must be viewed. And the news is encouraging.
As the following writeups show, the US is reaping the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act. Europe is buckling up. China has maintained its transition – in August, the country announced strategies for recycling renewables equipment such as old wind turbines and solar panels from the previous wave of capacity additions, which will retire soon. And India continues its plans to go green, having recently issued its definition of Green Hydrogen. Read on to know the specifics of each country, segregated according to the region classification used by the World Energy Storage Day (see above). WESD, commemorated on September 22 every year, is part of a global movement spearheaded by the India Energy Storage Alliance and involving various global industry stakeholders, policy makers, think tanks and associations. The 24 hour virtual session sees discourse on the new energy ecosystem centered around energy storage and the effective integration of renewable energy, transition towards electric vehicles and development of green hydrogen.
R1 | Region One
Japan, South Korea and the Philippines
R2 | Region Two
SAARC Countries: Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan Maldives and Sri Lanka
R3 | Region Three
MENA (Middle East-North Africa)
R4 | Region Four
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