Morning Blast: Which Excuse Will Climate Change Deniers Use Next?

A new report from BloombergNEF (BNEF) released this week showed that global investment in renewable energy rose 22% year over year to $358 billion in the first six months of 2023. That is an all-time high for any six-month period.

The bulk of the investment, $335 billion, was invested in financing large- and small-scale projects. Venture capital and private equity investments accounted for $10.4 billion of the investment, up 25% year over year. New equity from public markets rose 25% to $12.7 billion in the first half of the year. (See how the most important issues to Americans rank.)

Solar projects grabbed the lion’s share of the investment, $239 billion, up 43% year over year. China accounted for about half of that total, while the United States invested $25.5 billion in solar projects to finish a distant second.

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That is the good news. The bad news is that the rate of investment in renewable energy deployment needs to rise by 76% in order to meet the net-zero goal. From BNEF’s summary of the report:

According to BNEF’s New Energy Outlook, the world needs to spend a total of $8.3 trillion on renewable energy deployment between 2023 and 2030 to align with a global net-zero trajectory by 2050, keeping global warming well below 2°C.  This is equivalent to $590 billion being invested via asset finance and small-scale solar per six-month period. The $335 billion spent on such activities in 1H 2023 is therefore well below what is required to get on track for net zero.

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In an effort to help people understand just how the fossil-fuel industry tries to gum up the transition to renewable energy, Danish designer Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjørkskov (@KBRH87) has produced this handy chart of the typology of climate denial. It shows “12 methods to justify climate inaction used by companies, politicians, and lobbyists.”