Three places changing rapidly to combat climate change

Glaciers are shrinking, coral reefs are in crisis, and last year was the hottest on record. As people continue to burn fossil fuels, concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere have passed dangerous new thresholds. Is there progress on climate change anywhere?

The short answer is: It’s complicated, but yes.

In South America, one country generated nearly all of its electricity from a variety of renewable energy sources in less than a decade. In China, an electric car that sells for just $5,000 has suddenly become one of the best-selling cars. Paris is transforming itself into a city of bicycles.

Such measures alone will not be enough to avoid the worst consequences of climate change—increased droughts, more storms, and human misery. Still, they illustrate how some places can achieve significant local change quickly.

Thomas Spencer, an analyst at the International Energy Agency, said that globally, we are not moving as fast as we need to. But we definitely have the tools to move forward faster.

Climate solutions do exist. They’re here now, said Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a nonprofit focused on climate action.

In honor of Earth Day (and in an attempt to appeal to young, environmentally conscious voters), President Biden is pushing for a new national program to train and hire climate-related workers and reminding voters that inflation reductions are underway clean energy investment behavior.

These plans are just getting started, but around the world, climate solutions are already a ubiquitous part of everyday life.

Uruguay’s energy revolution

Situated between Argentina and Brazil, Uruguay has a population of 3.4 million and generates almost all of its electricity from renewable energy sources. In 2008, the government set a goal of revamping an electrical grid that relied on imported oil.

The country has large amounts of hydroelectric power, but successive droughts in the 1990s and 2000s caused a significant decline in the amount of electricity produced by dams. Uruguay is forced to import oil at unstable prices and faces shortages and power outages. Officials took note of the increasing cost competitiveness of renewable energy, especially wind energy, and set out to build a local wind industry almost from scratch.

Between 2013 and 2018, wind power grew dramatically from almost zero to about a quarter of Uruguay’s electricity mix. By the end of 2022, the latest year for which data is available, more than 90% of Uruguay’s electricity came from renewable sources, and although hydropower has declined, wind and solar are still growing.

The small country is an especially rapid example of the massive growth of renewable energy globally.

Electricity and heat are the largest sources of human greenhouse gas emissions. But now in many countries, renewable energy is growing faster than electricity demand and replacing fossil fuels in the power sector, said Bill Hare, chief executive and senior scientist at Climate Analysis, an international climate science and policy organization. This will most likely put us on the path to one and a half degrees and anything close to it within the next five years.

Transportation is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Sales of electric vehicles have grown exponentially over the past decade, and China is by far their largest market. According to data from the International Energy Agency, global electric vehicle sales in 2022 will be approximately 7.3 million. More than half of them (approximately 4.4 million units) were sold in China.

Historically, large cities like Shanghai have driven this trend. But in recent years, China’s smaller cities have begun to capture larger markets. In 2022, the two cities with the largest proportion of electric vehicles in total new car registrations are Sanya, a seaside resort city on Hainan Island, and Liuzhou, an industrial center in southern China. A recent report from the International Council on Clean Transportation showed that pure electric vehicles accounted for about 40% of new car registrations in these two cities, well above the national average of 19%.

The success of electric vehicles in China depends partly on policy and partly on sheer convenience and affordability. The most popular electric car in China right now is the Hongguang Mini, a small two-door model that sells for about $5,000. It is produced at the Liuzhou plant of SAIC-GM-Wuling, a Santong International joint venture.

Paris, the city of bicycles

Some cities are trying not only to electrify cars, but also to replace them wherever possible with cleaner modes of transportation, such as bicycles. In 2021, Paris officials announced a plan to make the city 100% bike-friendly within the next five years.

Paris has begun a year-long effort to do away with cars in the city center, or at least reduce their numbers. Between 2001 and 2018, the number of car trips in Paris fell by 60%. During the same period, public transport journeys increased by 40% and bicycle trips increased by 20%.

Cycling has boomed even more in recent years, partly due to the creation of new bike lanes (nicknamed “coronapistes”) during the coronavirus pandemic, Or corona lane. The share of trips taken by bicycle within Paris more than doubled between 2020 and 2024, from 5% to 11%, according to the Paris Regional Institute, an urban planning agency serving cities across Europe.

Paris currently has more than 1,000 kilometers of cycle lanes, with 180 more kilometers to be added under current plans, along with tens of thousands of bicycle parking spaces and new traffic light patterns that prioritize cyclists and public transport.