Fast Facts: 4 Challenges in the Renewable Energy Transition

Governments around the world made an ambitious pledge at the COP28 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai: to triple the world’s installed renewable energy capacity to 11,000 gigawatts by 2030, at a minimum.

While enterprising, this goal is not beyond reach. Recent analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that the world added 50 percent more renewable capacity in 2023 than it did in 2022.

“The largest growth took place in China, which commissioned as much solar photovoltaic technologies in 2023 as the entire world did in 2022, while China’s wind power additions rose by 66 percent year-on-year,” according to an IEA press release on the report. “The increases in renewable energy capacity in Europe, the United States, and Brazil also hit all-time highs.”

These increases, however, may not be enough to reach the COP28 goals. The video below explains why.