|
|
PHOTOGRAPH BY AMI VITALE, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
|
|
By Robert Kunzig, Environment Executive Editor
Thank you for opening an environment newsletter in the middle of the holiday season. Did you do it with apprehension? If so, relax: I just want to be sure you didn’t miss a story that Kieran Mulvaney did for us on the things that seemed to go right for the environment in 2021.
It’s a long list, running from pandas (pictured above), humpback whales, and several species of tuna (whose populations are all increasing), to restored protections on public lands in the U.S., to the progress made at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow.
And yes, there has been real and significant progress on climate. As Alejandra Borunda told us in her wrap-up of the Glasgow meeting, if countries actually put into effect their current plans to cut emissions, the world is on track to warm 2.4 degrees Celsius by 2100. That’s still far above the 2°C or even 1.5°C goal that scientists urge—and enough to wipe some island nations off the map. But it’s a lot better than the 4°C we were headed for just a decade ago.
“Honestly it’s quite amazing,” Borunda tells me. “Sometimes I forget that.”
One big reason for that progress is the surge in the deployment of renewable energy, which increasingly is just the cheapest energy available. Globally it’s expected to increase again by eight percent in 2021, the fastest rate since the 1970s, when the sector was new and tiny.
|
|
|
|
