The climate fight has one great ally. You just can’t look at it directly | Bill McKibben — SkimNews
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- Bill McKibben and a coalition of climate advocates will deliver a letter to the UN during New York Climate Week calling for clean energy access for everyone, everywhere by 2030, accompanied by a global Sun Day of action planned for next year.
- Solar, wind, and battery technology has expanded globally — from Karachi to California to Cuba — faster than any energy source in history; China appears to have begun its emissions decline earlier than expected and California cut gas-generated electricity use in half.
- Political momentum remains weak: the US is pursuing "energy dominance" through attacks on other countries, Canada's Mark Carney is building new oil and gas pipelines, and Britain is poised to resume North Sea drilling despite purging coal last year.
- The letter's signatories range from Bernie Sanders and Yeb Saño to Jane Fonda, Laurence Tubiana, Alex Honnold, Danny Kennedy of the Global Solar Council, Kumi Naidoo of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, and Muhammad Mustafa Amjad of Renewables First in Pakistan.
- China and India are using barely half their solar panel factory capacity, and too many countries treat clean energy as additional power rather than as a replacement for fossil fuels — the slack advocates want to close.
- A giant mural will be unveiled near New York's High Line with the three-word message "clean energy now," and organizers are raising funds to bring clean energy to the poorest corners of the world.
Why it matters: With 2027 almost certain to break the temperature record as El Niño builds, the bottleneck is no longer technology but political will. China and India already have spare solar factory capacity, yet the US, Canada, and Britain are still expanding fossil fuel infrastructure — making the UN letter's 2030 deadline a direct test of whether civil society can force governments to treat clean energy as a replacement, not a supplement, before climate tipping points foreclose the window.
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