The clean energy transition is well underway as the world moves away from fossil fuels and toward solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy to power society and mitigate the worst impacts of extreme weather. However, not everyone agrees that the massive global investments in renewable technologies will make a difference.
One Reddit user shared their opinion that "the global push for green energy is currently a waste of time and resources" in the r/changemyview subreddit.
In short, they believe that because developing nations aren't on board or can't invest in green energy at the scale of industrialized countries, it won't be "environmentally productive." They also shared that since China and India continue to build coal plants for energy, pollution will keep increasing.
However, China is the global leader in solar energy production and is expected to account for more than half of the world's renewable energy capacity by 2030, according to Sustainability Magazine. Meanwhile, India's clean energy investments reached $68 billion in 2023, representing a nearly 40% increase compared to the average for 2016-20. During the same period, fossil fuel investment increased by only 6%, according to the International Energy Agency.
The original poster also argued that "we're ignoring the most scalable clean energy source: nuclear" and "our infrastructure can't support a full green transition." While nuclear energy is a low-carbon power source, it isn't widely used because of high upfront construction and operating costs, long build times, and poor public perception resulting from historical nuclear accidents, such as at Fukushima and Chernobyl, as One Earth explained.
One user responded: "By investing in green energy, there's a market for it, and therefore an incentive to develop better technologies. It'll make viable green energy come along quicker." With the IEA estimating that clean energy investments — including grid infrastructure — will double those of dirty fuels this year, there's plenty of evidence to show that society is not neglecting grid upgrades.
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In addition to benefiting the economy, switching to green technologies protects the environment and public health, as fossil fuels are linked to numerous health conditions, including respiratory problems, heart disease, cancer, reproductive disorders, and more, according to the United Nations. They're also the key driver of rising global temperatures and increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather, which are putting communities at risk around the world.
As one commenter put it: "The problem is we don't have time to wait. Climate change is already starting to have an impact and it will get much worse before it might start to get better, and that's a big might which would happen after 2100. It's better to do something imperfectly now when it has a chance of achieving something rather than waiting to do it perfectly when it's too late."
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