Author Kurt Vonnegut described this as one of his shapes of story. Of Cinderella, the most popular story ever and translated into 700 languages, he said: “People love that story.”
It’s Rags to Riches. We all recognise this shape of story in our own hopes.
Now we’re all in a climate and nature hole.
The physics of heat are relentless. Rising seas, more moisture in the air, droughts then heavier rain, stronger wind and storm, melting glaciers. The cause is simple. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases capturing heat in the atmosphere. The source is clear too. It’s fossil fuels. Coal, oil, gas.
This much is known. The hole is hot and the future dark.
So it seems.
The 30th COP (United Nations Conference of the Parties) has just concluded in the Amazonian city of Belém. COPs are good. They bring people together. They bring along activists and thinkers and academics and citizens’ groups. People meet, talk, share. Little advances happen.
But there are two problems
Groups of countries can easily be blockers. Key text disappears from the declaration as everyone tries to get to at least some kind of agreement. In the COP30 agreement, there’s no mention of fossil fuels. Blockers won.
Second, even when a declaration emerges at a time of common purpose and gentle politics, such as in Paris 2015, it still needs to be implemented.
We all hoped the Paris agreement would hold global temperatures to below +1.5°C (above pre-industrial baseline). But in ten years, carbon dioxide levels have leapt, and temperatures followed. The breaching of +1.5°C is inevitable.
And yet, COPs are wondrous
There’s common purpose. They point at the deniers and the selfish. They provide an energy to social and political change. They’re talked about.
For we have much to share. Remarkably, things are happening with renewables. They are reaching a scale where costs are falling and businesses, households and whole communities start to look daft in not adopting.
A quiz question. What links these seven countries: Iceland, Norway, Albania, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Paraguay and Uruguay?
It is this: their electricity supply systems are 100% renewable. A mix of wind, solar, hydro and geothermal has saved them huge sums of money by not having to purchase fossil fuels. These countries did this not by accident, but by intent. Governments chose.
Another question. When you spend capital on renewable energy infrastructure, what are the running costs of producing energy?
This is easy. It’s virtually zero. You get electricity for nothing, for 25, 30, 35 years. And there are no clean up costs. No air pollution to damage health. No greenhouse gases.
Countries are saving money; so are households
Typically, adoption follows an S-curve. For a long period, slow growth, then the exponential steep part, then a flattening. But after 80% of adoption, you don’t need to worry about the last bit. We know that systems then tip.
Life on the S-curve is something staggering, as Bill McKibben writes in his new book, “Here Comes the Sun.”
In 2004, it took the world one year to install 1GW (gigawatt) of solar generation. In 2016, it took one week; in 2023 one day; in 2024 just 18 hours.
This is happening fast.
Here’s the example of electric vehicles (EVs), as Tim Lenton shows in “Positive Tipping Points.”
In 2010, there were 3,000 EVs in the whole world. By 2022, there were 10 million; in 2024, 40 million. Doubling times for adoption are one and a half years. In four more doubling periods, a total of six years, there will be 640 million EVs worldwide. One more doubling period, and all fossil fuel vehicles will be gone. They’ll be stranded assets, along with ships burning oil to move oil, and petrol stations and domestic tankers.
In China, EV car companies are now offering 600,000-mile warranties, so confident are they in the technology. It’s going to take a lot of years for most people to drive that far.
A small change in policy can help
All countries across Europe are suffering higher gas prices since the invasion of Ukraine. Germany has just deregulated the installation of solar PV on balconies and roofs of flats. 1.5 million people have acted. Solar panels are suddenly everywhere. Their energy costs have fallen. The country is safer too. Now the same in Italy, Poland and Spain.
Solar panels are, after all, now cheaper than garden fences.
In Pakistan, national electricity demand fell by 10% last year. Households, farmers, businesses are buying cheap solar panels from China, installing them on every roof and spare patch of land. In six months last year, people installed 30% of national grid power. Diesel sales fell across the country by 30%.
The UK is good-bad
The first country to have a legally binding Climate Change Act. The first country deliberately to remove coal from all electricity generation: the last plant closed in late 2024. Yet oddly hesitating over renewables.
Let’s put this in perspective. Sizewell is the UK’s next nuclear power station. It’s going to take a long time to build; it’ll be late (they all are); we’ll pay more (we always do). And at the end, it’ll produce a meagre 3GW per year.
Don’t laugh. This is true. In Wyoming this year, legislators filed a Bill entitled “Make Carbon Dioxide Great Again.”
Yet in the Dakotas, 85% of electricity is now from renewable sources. Tiny Vermont is saving $2 billion per year by not paying to import fossil fuels into the state. Some get it, some don’t.
So what’s our story now?
We’re still in a hole.
Anyone born before 1990 has lived through the good times, and then the fast slide into the hole. 1990 was the last safe year, when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was at 350 ppm (parts per million). Today it’s 427, and rising. Very unsafe.
Anyone born after 2010 has only seen the bottom of the hole. They’re going to be the first generation to experience the single direction of upward movement. It’s going to feel very good indeed.
COPs are important. They stop forgetfulness.
COPS are flawed. Agreements are hard, and blockers love to do their thing.
Here we are then. In a decade when systems will flip, costs and pollution fall. When countries will find that green growth brings new jobs, better health and lower energy costs.
As Nick Stern recently wrote, “When some step back, others step forward.” The arc of history is being revealed.
We do still have choices.
Jules Pretty has written prize-winning books on environment and nature, and is host of the YouTube film channel Story for Climate and Nature Recovery (free subscription). Here’s his website. He is Chair of the Essex Climate Action Commission.
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