This heatwave is gripping parts of Europe with temperatures reaching
more than 40Â°C. Florida's normally warm coastal water
is now more like a hot tower. Air quality
is caused by more than 150 active wildfire. The
mayhem caused by torrential rain. Canada's worst wildfire season
on record. Climate news can be overwhelming. It's
easy to feel powerless with missed targets and grim reports
. The world has a lot of work to do
together to avoid a climate catastrophe but to keep pushing
up the hill, sometimes we need to look down
it to remind ourselves that progress is possible. First
looking globally, the International Energy Agency projects that by
2030 demand for coal, oil and natural gas will
peak and nearly half of the world's electricity supply will
come from renewables which includes wind, solar and biomass
. Meanwhile in Europe, nearly a quarter of energy
consumed last year was clean. One of the leaders
in this transition is Portugal. The country aims to
be carbon neutral by 2045. And at the end
of October, it set a record. Its electricity
came from 100% renewable sources for six days straight.
We were not using gas. We no longer have
a coal plants in Portugal. So we were able
to uh use hydro wind, solar and biomass to
generate all the energy necessary to cover the energy needs
of the industrials and the households and even surpass that
needs. And we were exporting energy to Spain.
It's all being made possible due to lowered costs driven
largely by China. Its clean energy manufacturing and exports
are surging, bringing down costs significantly globally. Solar
energy prices have fallen more than 80% since 2010.
Now, wind and solar are the cheapest forms of
electricity. China's expansion of clean energy manufacturing capacity is
also important globally because it creates so many positive benefits
in terms of development and growth and so on and
many other regions want to replicate China's success. It's
good news for the climate crisis, but there are
concerns about China dominating the market and pushing other countries
out of the global energy economy. China now accounts
for 80% of the global production of solar panels.
And while it is the leading producer of coal,
it's expected to see emissions decline in 2024 after a
boom in its own wind and solar capacity, there's
incredible momentum around the world when it comes to renewables
, they are being driven by market forces. So
we have a climate imperative that countries are acting on
. That started the transition. But because we've seen
this decline in the cost of wind and solar that
has now flipped where we've reached a tipping point here
at home, the transition to renewable energy is happening
much more slowly in Canada. Last year, only
$2.8 billion was invested in solar energy compared with$37
billion in oil and gas investments. However, globally
, this year for the first time investment in solar
energy is outpacing oil. We know that renewable energy
can thrive in Canada. We know that we have
the resources to do it, but we do need
to make sure that we are providing consistent signals,
signals coming from countries around the world that recognize a
move away from fossil fuels is needed to curb global
warming. Global demand for oil and gas are going
, they are in decline and they will continue to
decline if we now take decisions. Tripling for 2030
the renewables energy available, it is possible and it
is cheaper than doing anything else. And a commitment
of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 is one of
the top agenda items at the International Climate Conference taking
place in Dubai, the heart of the climate policy
discussion. Now, the Cop conference in Dubai joining
us from there, Susan Ormiston, Susan renewables have
clearly been a big focus this year. Well,
indeed, as you just heard, it's a new
agenda item here at uh COP 28. The idea
is to triple renewables over the next seven years and
100 and 18 countries have already signed up including Canada
for countries with a lot of renewables. It's a
big commitment for those who have little. It's not
as much but it's there and it's gaining a lot
of traction. And also, you know, renewable
energy is having this moment in Europe, partly because
of the war between Russia and Ukraine. It was
a big scare for oil and gas imports going into
Europe. Is there any pushback to this growth?
Uh Yes, I mean, some are skeptical that
these pledges and declarations and there are plenty of them
here at cops uh that they actually happen that in
reality some of those promises fall short or completely disappear
. Canada has signed up for this renewable tripling by
2030 but you know, we've got some pull back
on incentives in Ontario and Alberta has cut uh renewable
development for about six months. So we'll see how
it all ends up. And then there's the idea
if you put so much attention on renewables, do
you lift the pressure on oil and gas companies and
curbing those fossil fuels? And we talked to a
leader from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, Tina
Stege. Here's what she said about that. Of
course, we need to scale up renewables massively,
but it's only half the solution. We know the
root cause of this problem is fossil fuels. And
unless we also at the same time, address that
root cause, which is the production of fossil fuels
, the burning of fossil fuels the planet will continue
to burn, but there is no doubt that there
is growth in this sector. We're hearing that all
over this conference and just this week, we went
out to one of the largest solar plants in the
world just south of Abu Dhabi. Uh 21 square
kilometers of solar panels can power 100 and 60,000 houses
. Now, you know, it's a small fraction
of the energy use here in the UAE. But
around the world, we are seeing its growth,
Susan Ormiston in Dubai tonight.