10 charts prove that clean energy is winning — even in the Trump era

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By Umair Irfan, Benji Jones, Adam Clark Estes, and Sam Delgado, Vox. 

Excerpt: Technologies that can power our lives and jobs while doing less harm to the global climate — wind, solar, batteries, etc. — are getting cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant. The pace of progress on price, scale, and performance has been so extraordinary that even the most optimistic forecasts about green tech in the past have turned out to be too pessimistic. Clean energy isn’t just powering our devices, tools, and luxuries — it’s growing the global economy, creating a whole suite of new jobs, and reshaping trade. And despite what headlines may say, there’s no sign these trends will reverse. Political and economic turmoil may slow down clean energy, but the sector has built up so much momentum that it’s become nigh unstoppable. ...Texas utilities have come to realize that investing in clean energy is not just good for the environment; it’s good business. And even without subsidies and preferential treatment, the benefits of clean technologies — in clean air, scalability, distribution, and cost — have become impossible to ignore. ...Since 2010, US wind capacity has more than tripled, ...In 2023, the average cost of new onshore wind projects was two-thirds lower than a typical fossil fuel alternative, per a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency. ...Around the world, cheap EVs are surging in popularity. ...The cheapest model from Chinese front-runner BYD now costs less than $10,000, and by 2027, Volkswagen promises it will sell a cheap EV in Europe for about $20,000.... 


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