After a rare pandemic-related dip in 2020, global carbon emissions bounced back with a vengeance. Climate disasters seemed relentless over the summer, from flooding in Western Europe and China to wildfires in Siberia and the American West. And although world leaders made some headway at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, their new emission-reduction commitments aren’t nearly enough to get the world back on track.
Read more: Why TIME Dedicated an Issue to the Global Climate Fight
Even so, it was also a year in which individuals, organizations and governments started to come together to respond to the climate emergency. It’s unclear whether that momentum will lead to the sweeping systemic changes the world needs to rapidly zero out greenhouse-gas emissions, but from international agreements to technological advances, some progress is being made. Here, some of the most important climate advances of 2021.
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Electric acceleration
Traditional carmakers have long been seen as an obstacle in the fight against climate change, with internal combustion engines in trucks and automobiles responsible for almost 20% of U.S. carbon emissions. But we might look back on 2021 as the year the dam broke, with carmakers from General Motors to Mercedes-Benz practically falling over one another with pledges to electrify their offerings and plow money into battery vehicles. Ford rolled out an electric version of its most popular vehicle, the F-150 pickup, while Tesla, a trailblazer in the segment, continued to charge ahead, logging record quarterly profits.
A gust of green power
Offshore wind is one of the world’s best decarbonization tools, especially to power densely populated coastal areas like the Eastern seaboard. But the U.S. hasn’t built more than a handful of those turbines, even as gigawatts of offshore wind power began flowing in Europe and China in recent decades. This year, the U.S. approved its first large-scale offshore wind farm,…
Source : time
