The Most Hopeful Climate Stories of 2023
17 climate stories you might have missed this year
Writing and reading about climate change can be grim.
Surely you read the same stories that we did this year. 2023 was the hottest year on record. COP 28 was overrun and corrupted by fossil fuel lobbyists. Oil and gas production continues to grow.
But the current moment we live in is a complicated one because while there is so much to despair about, there are also countless signs of climate progress. As climate scientist Kate Marvel told the New York Times’s David Wallace-Wells last year, “We live in a terrible world, and we live in a wonderful world.”
It’s no contradiction to say that 2023 was both one of the worst years for our climate future and one of the best, a year full of reasons to despair and one full of signs of hope.
To ring in the New Year, we’d like to reflect on some of the signs of climate progress we saw in 2023. Here are 17 hopeful stories that you might have missed this year.
Global renewable energy deployments surged
The U.S. installed nearly 33 GW of solar
In 2023, the U.S. added almost 33 GW of new solar capacity to the grid. It was the largest expansion yet in a single year — and a roughly 50% jump from 2022. Even the residential sector, which has faced numerous challenges this year, grew by 12%.
Most solar capacity growth came from utility-scale projects. Developers added about 20 GW of utility-scale solar in 2023, up nearly 100% from the year before.
China is on track to meet its 2030 renewable goal early
Renewable energy growth is also taking off in China. The country is on track to achieve its ambitious 2030 renewable energy target — building 1,200 GW of renewable capacity — five years ahead of schedule according to a recent report by Global Energy Monitor.
Global renewable growth is on track to triple by 2030
In total, countries around the world built between 440 and 500 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity in 2023, according to a recent report by Ember.
If renewable growth continues at the same pace it has since 2016—17% per year on average—then the world will triple renewable capacity by 2030, one of the goals set by countries at COP 28.
EV sales kept growing
U.S. annual EV sales reached one million for the first time
2023 was also a breakout year for electric vehicles, in the U.S. and around the world.
Through the first 11 months of the year, one million battery electric vehicles (BEVs) were sold in the U.S. That’s up 50% compared to a year ago when EV sales were already surging. As Princeton clean energy researcher, Jesse Jenkins recently wrote:
“Sales of purely electric vehicles have been steadily increasing at a roughly 60 percent annual growth rate for each of the last six quarters. That’s fast enough to double EV sales every 14 months!”
Last month, battery electric vehicles market share climbed to just over 7% according to Argonne National Lab. By comparison, three years ago, BEVs only had a 2% market share.
Global EV sales grew by 34%
Globally, EV sales are also growing quickly. BNEF expects global EV sales to reach 14 million in 2023, 34% higher than in 2022 and 115% higher than in 2021.
Most new EVs that hit the roads this year were sold in China and Europe, which are responsible for 58% and 26% of the global market. (The U.S. is the third largest EV market at 12% of sales).
States passed e-bike incentives
Loyal readers of this newsletter know that I believe the best EVs have two wheels, not four. And 2023 was a good year for the mighty e-bike too.
This year, cities and states around the country continued to encourage people to ditch their cars (or car trips) in favor of e-bikes. Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington all introduced new incentive programs that reduce the cost of e-bikes. 10 states now have such programs, according to the advocacy group People for Bikes.
Clean energy prices started falling again
For the last few decades, clean energy’s growth has been driven largely by falling prices. Between 1975 and 2021, solar module prices fell by a factor of 400. The price of lithium-ion batteries — a key component in EVs — fell by a similar amount over the last few decades.
But in 2021 and 2022, something strange happened: Clean energy component prices started to rise for the first time, threatening to slow the energy transition.
One of the most important stories in 2023 was the reversal of this trend. The price of solar modules, lithium-ion batteries, and many of other clean energy materials started falling again.
The global average solar module price fell to just under 20 cents by the middle of 2023, compared to a 2021 peak of 27.8 cents. That’s important considering that solar modules are responsible for about a third of the cost of a utility-scale solar farm.
The price of lithium-ion batteries fell 14% in 2023 to $139 per kWh. As Julian Spector and Dan McCarthy write:
Battery watchers have long described the $100-per-kilowatt-hour threshold as a mythic boundary past which cost-competitiveness [with internal combustion engines] would be assured…If prices continue to fall at roughly the pace they did this year, the industry will blow past $100 per kilowatt-hour in a handful of years.
States passed more landmark climate bills
In last year’s good news round-up, I wrote about four states — Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland, and Massachusetts — that gained Democratic trifectas in 2022. I also wrote, “All of these states are expected to pass important climate policies over the next two years.” And that’s just what a few of those states did in 2023.
Minnesota committed to 100% clean electricity
A few months after Minnesota elected a Democrat trifecta, its governor signed a bill that will require the state to get all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2040. The new law made Minnesota the 10th state to commit to transitioning entirely to clean electricity.
Michigan passed a 100% clean energy standard
Michigan, one of the three other states where Democrats gained a trifecta last November, passed its own major climate legislation. The package of bills promotes energy efficiency and directs the state’s utilities to use carbon-free energy by 2040.
In passing the bill, lawmakers in Michigan also took the unpopular but vitally important step of restricting towns and counties’ ability to block clean energy projects. As readers of this newsletter probably know by now, local opposition is one of the biggest threats to the energy transition.
New York banned fossil fuels in new construction
In May, New York became the first state to pass a law banning the use of natural gas and other fossil fuels in most new buildings. If it survives legal challenges, the law will apply to buildings under eight stories starting in 2026 and taller buildings starting in 2029.
Transmission lines cleared red tape
In order to build enough renewable energy to avoid climate disaster, the U.S. and countries around the world will need to build an enormous amount of transmission capacity to get power from remote solar and wind farms to city centers.
The current outlook is daunting. There are more than 8,000 energy projects — most of them solar, wind, and battery projects — waiting to connect to the grid. Less than 20% of those projects will ever make it onto the grid. And in the last decade, the average wait time to connect clean energy projects to the grid has doubled to four years.
But in 2023 multiple important transmission projects moved forward.
TransWest Express started construction
After over a decade and a half of work, the TransWest Express transmission line in 2023 received its last major permit from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and broke ground on its 732-mile transmission line.
The project will carry 3,000 MW of wind power from Wyoming to consumers in California, Nevada, and Arizona.
SunZia received federal approval
In 2023, the 520-mile SunZia Southwest transmission line, which waited nearly as long as TransWest for its key permits, also secured BLM approval and broke ground this year. The project will carry up to 4,500 MW of mostly renewable electricity from New Mexico to Arizona and California.
Grain Belt Express inched closer to reality
Grain Belt Express, another transmission project plagued by regulatory delays, moved closer to construction when it received an important approval from the Missouri Public Service Commission this year. If built, the 800-mile transmission line will send 5,000 MW of electricity from the windy plains of Kansas to Missouri, Illinois, and other nearby states.
Companies invested $50 billion in U.S. clean energy supply chain
When Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, they aimed to do two things: cut emissions and build a clean energy supply chain. In many ways, that second part was the more radical policy aim. But the early data indicates that the IRA is convincing companies to bring their manufacturing back to America.
In 2023 alone, companies announced just under $50 billion worth of clean energy manufacturing investments, according to data compiled by Jack Conness. Those investments are expected to create 43,000 jobs.
EPA finalized its new methane rule
In December, during COP 28, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its new restrictions on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. The rule imposes new limits on venting and flaring, raises standards for high-emitting equipment, and requires producers to monitor leaks instead of relying on estimates.
Methane is a superpollutant with many times more warming power than carbon dioxide. The EPA estimates that the rule will prevent 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from entering the atmosphere between 2024 and 2038 — almost as much as the electric power sector emitted in 2022.
Importantly, however, the rule only targets the oil and gas sector, even though almost three-quarters of the country’s methane emissions come from other sources. Agriculture, another major contributor, has yet to see significant methane restrictions.
Deforestation rates declined in the Amazon
Last year Brazilian presidential candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—known to most as Lula—promised, during his campaign, to protect the Amazon rainforest. In 2023, he made good on that promise.
The rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell for at least eight months straight during Lula’s first year back in office. Between January and November of this year, Amazon deforestation was down roughly 50% from the previous year.
The Amazon rainforest has long been one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks, but researchers have warned that ongoing deforestation threatens to destabilize the ecosystem so badly that it could emit more carbon dioxide than it captures. The rainforest currently stores approximately 150 to 200 billion metric tons of carbon — several times the annual emissions of all the countries in the world combined.
The EU launched its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
After adopting a first-of-a-kind carbon import tax last year, the European Union implemented the first stage of the program in 2023. The regulation is intended to keep EU-made products competitive with those purchased from countries with lower carbon pricing.
Starting this year, companies in the EU are required to report the emissions associated with imports like iron, steel, cement, and fertilizer. A tariff on those embedded emissions will be phased in starting in 2026.
Overall, the EU was responsible for roughly 16% of all global imports in 2021. The regulation could push companies around the world to cut their carbon emissions in order to keep their exports competitive.
What did we miss?
To write a single story that covers all the good climate news of 2023 would be impossible. We have no doubt that we missed a lot of important developments, especially those outside of the United States.
Let us know in the comments below what we missed. And if you enjoyed this story, share the good news on social media.