A key slogan in climate policy is “electrify everything”, so let’s start there. The fastest rise in wind power has been in Uruguay, where turbines went from producing 1% of electricity a decade ago to 36% today. With other renewables, over 90% of power is now green. Uruguay’s ministers changed the narrative on cost and reliability, and created 50,000 new jobs along the way.
Lighting is a vital use of electricity and something remarkable has happened in India. In less than a decade, nearly 370 million highly efficient LED lightbulbs have been installed in homes. The government worked with manufacturers to drive down costs, and microloans were available for low earners. So far the scheme is saving 387 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year, the same as the UK’s entire annual emissions.
Getting off fossil fuels raises understandable fears for those working in the industry. But Spain has shown how a just transition can be delivered. It has invested in mining communities, creating 1,200 new jobs, as well as funding early retirement for coalminers. Coal production and use is now down 80% and will be eliminated by 2025.
Shutting off future fossil fuel production is vital and Denmark led the way in 2020 by ending new oil and gas licences, as has the UK’s new government, and Colombia looks set to join them. All have invested in renewables and pledged just transitions for workers.
Progress on clean electricity is going well, but cutting emissions from cars, trucks and planes is not. However, Curitiba in Brazil, has tackled rising car use with a state-of-the-art rapid bus system, building new routes and using dynamic traffic management to speed the buses on their way. Shenzhen, a city in China, has implemented a zero-emission zone for trucks, and dozens of Dutch cities are following close behind.
Carbon emissions from homes have also failed to fall at anything near the pace required, but the MaPrimeRénov’ scheme in France has shown what can be achieved. It offers joined-up support for homeowners and led to 670,000 homes being renovated in 2022 alone, including 156,000 air source heat pumps. Almost 70% of the whole-house retrofits were for households with the lowest incomes.
Perhaps the most difficult sector to tackle is food, with its cultural significance and farming traditions. But Denmark (again) has broken the taboo and from 2030 will tax methane emissions from cattle and other livestock, which are a major global contributor to global heating. The country also launched the world’s first national action plan for a move towards plant-based foods. “They are the future,” the food minister said.
Producing food sustainably is one side of the issue, reducing food waste is the other. City dwellers in South Korea now use special bins that weigh food waste and charge the resident accordingly. The amount of waste fell almost immediately.
Climate action may not yet be on the scale needed to halt global heating – that requires net zero carbon emissions – but the policies and technologies exist. Now, it’s all about how fast we can persuade political and business leaders to roll them out. I hope these few examples have inspired you.
If you have other examples of successful climate policies you’d like to highlight, please share them by emailing me at damian.carrington@theguardian.com.
