Welcome to Zeroing In by Speed & Scale, where we cut through the noise to deliver a data-driven update on progress toward net zero.

From all of us at Speed & Scale, we wish you and yours happy holidays ❄️☃️.

A year’s end is a great time to reflect and to commit–or recommit–to ambitious goals for the year to come. While some 2024 climate outcomes merit “naughty” lumps of coal, there were “nice” spots of climate action across each of our objectives. So before we move onto the next, let’s remember and reflect on the clean energy and climate tech wins we’ve had this year.

🚗 1.0 – Electrify Transportation

• 🔋 The global price of lithium battery packs fell by 20 percent this year to a record low of $155 per kWh–a big boost for price-competitive EVs.

💡 2.0 – Decarbonize The Grid

• 🎢 Renewables deployment keeps skyrocketing: Installed solar power is expected to total 593 GW globally in 2024, 29 percent more than last year.

🐄 3.0 – Fix Food

• 🐄 First carbon price on agriculture: Denmark pioneered the world’s first agricultural emissions tax. Revenues will boost the industry’s green transition.

🌳 4.0 – Protect Nature

• 🇧🇷 Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon dropped by nearly 31 percent in 2024, but drought and wildfires remain big problems. With Brazil set to host COP30 next year, the world is looking to South America’s largest economic power for strong climate policies.

🧱 5.0 – Clean Up Industry

• 🏭 China strengthens carbon trading scheme: China’s national emissions trading scheme (ETS) expanded to include the largest industrial sources of greenhouse gases: steel, aluminium, and cement. With these additions, the country’s ETS now covers 60 percent of their ~15 Gts of annual emissions.

🧹 6.0 – Remove Carbon

• 🏗️ The largest direct air capture plant in the world, Iceland’s Mammoth, is open for business. It will permanently remove up to 36,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, an important growth signal for the young removal industry.

🏛️ 7.0 – Win Politics And Policy

• 🇬🇧 UK leads the way: With a mix of carbon pricing, clean energy standards, and renewables subsidies, the UK became the first G20 country to halve its carbon emissions from their peak level. In a promising sign for the global transition to clean energy, Britain’s economy doubled over the same period. They also closed their last operating coal plant this year.

🏃 8.0 – Turn Movements Into Action

• ☢️ Nuclear stages a comeback. Policymakers and big tech firms in the U.S. have re-introduced nuclear energy into the climate conversation as a way to help meet surging demands for more power, in particular for AI and huge data centers. Microsoft inked a deal to reopen Three Mile Island, while Amazon bought a nuclear-powered data center.

⚡ 9.0 – Innovate!

• 🌋 Geothermal on the rise: A new IEA report on geothermal energy projects that it could supply more than 800 GW by 2050, equivalent to current demand in the United States and India combined.

💰 10.0 – Invest!

• 💲Bond investors are financing the clean energy transition: In the first half of 2024, issuance of green bonds–bonds whose proceeds are invested solely in sustainable projects–reached new highs.

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2025:

• 🌎 To sustain and accelerate progress in the new year, we must continue to tell the story of how ambitious climate action brings significant economic, national security, health, and environmental benefits. As we’ve previously written, economic kitchen table issues and climate issues are now inextricably linked. For most people on our planet, climate issues are already impacting how we live, work, and play.

• 🇺🇲 From a clean energy policy perspective, the U.S. will see a shift from federal leadership on climate to increased momentum at the state and local level.

• 🇨🇳 All eyes will be on China, both the world’s largest emitter and its largest deployer of clean energy. The coming year may mark peak emissions for China, a pivotal step toward reaching net zero. We’ll also be following the anticipated escalation of tariff disputes between China and the U.S., and how increasing tensions and new trade strategies may affect clean energy goals in both countries.

• 🇧🇷 In December 2025, Brazil will host COP30. Early next year, countries will submit their updated emissions reduction commitments, or Nationally Determined Contributions. The strength or weakness of these commitments will be a crucial market signal for our global climate ambitions. We must motivate leaders to find the political courage to make more ambitious commitments.  

At Speed & Scale, we often say that climate is an all-hands-on-deck challenge. As we close the book on 2024, that point is truer than ever. Policy leaders, innovators, educators, activists, industry leaders, and citizens around the globe are all doing important climate work. All of it is essential to our mission to save a habitable planet. So let’s recharge over the holidays, and then roll up our sleeves and forge ahead with more good work in 2025.

Happy holidays,

Speed & Scale

P.S. We really enjoy Ted-Ed’s amazing climate videos. Here are three of our favorites from this year:

How does an air conditioner actually work?:

Is this the most valuable thing in the ocean?:

How close are we to powering the world with nuclear fusion?:

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