A misleading narrative of overcapacity in renewables is creating man-made barriers to scaling the clean energy needed to limit global warming to 1.5 C.
Breaking this misconception requires redefining climate benefits to include the economic gains of new industrial growth, not just the damages avoided.
Zhang Yongsheng, director of the Research Institute for Eco-civilization at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, made the remarks in an event held on the sidelines of the ongoing annual United Nations climate change conference in Belem, Brazil, on Monday.
The event was themed the Net-Zero Emission Transition Led by Global Green Actions.
The world is drastically off track to achieve 1.5 C target, said Zhang, quoting multiple sources, including the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body that assesses the science related to climate change.
The landmark 2015 Paris Agreement aims to keep global temperature rise this century below 2 C above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 C. Scientists increasingly agree that keeping global warming under 1.5 C is essential to avoid severe and catastrophic impacts.
Zhang noted an enormous action deficit that is putting the 1.5 C target in jeopardy.
Even if all countries meet their current climate action pledges, which are formerly known as Nationally Determined Contributions, the world is still headed for a world warmer than 2 C.
In fact, the solution is already here, Zhang stressed. Quoting data from the International Renewable Energy Agency, he added that renewables like solar and wind are now the most affordable source of new electricity in most of the world.
He underscored renewables as a tool that "fights climate change and saves money", as in 2024 alone, renewable power avoided nearly $500 billion in fossil fuel costs globally.
In a stark contrast, however, the world is installing only about one-third of the new renewable capacity it needs each year to hit net zero emissions, with only about half of the world's existing production capacity utilized.
He emphasized that what prevents the cheap and effective technology from being scaled up is "fundamentally economic, not technological".
Because global production capacity now far exceeds what the market is actually using, some people jump to a misleading conclusion that there's a global overcapacity in new energy, Zhang said, underlining the misconception as a major hindering factor for climate actions.
He pointed out that what stands behind the misconception is a conventional calculation, based on which countries hammer out their NDCs.
In this calculation mode, the benefits of mitigating climate change are narrowly defined as the damages avoided, but overlook the birth of new industries.
"For instance, jumping from fossil fuels to renewables and from gas vehicles to EVs. It drives growth. It doesn't hinder it," he stressed.
He said the flawed logic leads to a dangerous conclusion that the economically "optimal" level of warming is around 3 C.
"Conventional climate economics and climate science are on two parallel tracks that never meet. We must bring them together in a new paradigm," he said.
The logic defies conventional thinking, he said. Strict regulations on fuel-powered vehicles, for example, can trigger an electric vehicle boom and cut emissions. Yet, without such pressure, there is little incentive for change, locking in high levels of emissions.
He noted that as "a self-fulfilling process", saying, "No action, no green evidence."
"Strong, ambitious action creates huge markets, drives innovation, and lowers costs further," he said. "In the new paradigm, the harder you try, the cheaper it gets — the exact opposite of the conventional economic wisdom on climate."
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