Progress moving away from fossil fuels and cheaper climate technologies are among the bright spots in an otherwise dark year
The vibes in the climate world this year have largely been … less than great.
Global greenhouse-gas emissions hit a new high, reaching 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024. This year is also on track to be the warmest on record, with temperatures through September hitting 1.54 °C (2.77 °F) above preindustrial levels. Global climate talks fell flat, and disasters from wildfires to hurricanes are being made worse by climate change.
But among all that (very real) negative news, there was some good, too: We saw progress cutting back on the most polluting fossil fuels, cheaper and better technologies for combating climate change, and a continuous global effort to address the problem. As we near the end of 2024, let’s take a moment to look back on some of the bright spots.
We’re kicking coal to the curb
One of my favorite climate moments from this year happened in the UK. The country has historically relied heavily on coal as an electricity source—as of 1990, coal met about 65% of its electricity demand. But on September 30, 2024, the last coal plant in the nation shut down.
Renewables are stepping in to fill the gap. Wind farms in the UK are on track to produce more electricity this year than coal and gas plants together.
The moment was a symbolic one, and it also reflects the very real progress that’s happening around the world in inching away from this polluting fossil fuel. In the US, coal made up around 50% of the electricity supply four decades ago. In 2023, that share was roughly 16%.
We should see coal use plateau and potentially begin to fall by the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency. Progress needs to happen faster, though, and it needs to happen in countries like China, where energy demand is increasing. There’s also growing concern about what increasing energy demand from data centers, including those used to power AI, will mean for efforts to shut off old coal plants.
Batteries just keep getting cheaper
Lithium-ion battery packs are cheaper than ever in 2024, with prices dropping 20% this year to $115 per kilowatt-hour, according to data from BloombergNEF. That’s the biggest drop since 2017.
Batteries are a central technology for addressing climate change. They power the electric vehicles we’re relying on to help clean up the transportation sector and play an increasingly important role for the grid, since they can store energy from inconsistently available renewables like wind and solar.
Since EVs are still more expensive upfront than their gas-powered counterparts in most of the world, cheaper batteries are great news for efforts to get more people to take the leap to electric. And it’s hard to overstate how quickly battery prices have plummeted. Batteries were twice as expensive in 2017 as they are today. Just 10 years ago, prices were six times what they are in 2024.
To be fair, there’s been mixed news in the EV world this year—a slowdown in demand growth for EVs is actually one of the factors helping battery prices hit record lows. EV sales are still growing around the world, but at a slower pace than they were in 2023. China is the biggest EV market in the world by far, making up three-quarters of global registrations in 2024 as of October.
Climate tech is still busy and bustling
Looking back at the energy and climate stories we published this year, I can’t help but feel at least a little bit optimistic about what’s coming next.
Some groups are looking to the natural world to address the climate crisis; this year, I covered a company working to grow microbes in massive bioreactors to help supplement our food sources, as well as researchers who are looking to plants to help mine the metals we need to fight climate change. Others hope to tweak biology—my colleague James Temple spoke with Jennifer Doudna about the potential for CRISPR, the gene-editing technology she pioneered.
Companies are deploying air-conditioning systems that can act like batteries, storing up energy for when it’s needed. The US Department of Energy is investing in projects that aim to concentrate heat from the sun and use it to power the grid or industrial processes. I spoke to a startup looking to make hydropower technology that’s safer for fish, and another building magnets using cheap, widely available materials.
And in October we published our 2024 list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch, which featured everything from a startup using AI to detect wildfires to a company giving supplements to cattle to help cut emissions from their burps.
Climate change represents a massive challenge for the world, and we’re entering an especially uncertain time. We’ll be covering it all, the good and the bad. Thanks for being here this year, and I’m looking forward to bringing you all the climate tech news you need in 2025.
Another thing
This year was filled with some exciting moments in technology, but there were also some failures. Here are a few of the worst technology flops of 2024. Check it out to see why voluntary carbon markets made the list and learn all about AI slop.
And one more
You’ve almost certainly heard that energy demand from AI is huge, and only expected to explode in the coming years. A new preprint study aimed to quantify just how bad things are, and the researchers found that data centers accounted for over 4% of electricity consumption in the US between September 2023 and August 2024. And the carbon intensity of the power that’s used is nearly 50% higher than the national average.
Source: MIT Tech Review
