Media coverage

"We're witnessing a major push for expanded fossil gas LNG production and import capacity across the world – in Europe, Africa, North America, Asia and Australia – which could cause global emissions to breach dangerous levels," - Bill Hare

“If fossil fuel companies think that they can expand production under a net zero target, they need to think again.”- Bill Hare

India invests in renewable energy, but still heavily relies on coal.

At COP 26, the Vietnamese government promised to end the construction of new coal plants and phase out the dirtiest of those already running. However, as Dr. Nandini Das of Climate Analytics points out, "this is not actually what Vietnam is doing at a national level", since new policies have yet to be implemented.

India could help limit global temperature rises to 1.5C - but only if its emissions peak as soon as possible and if by 2030 they have dropped by 16% from their 2005 levels. - Nandini Das, a climate and energy economist at Climate Analytics

“Our current levels of global warming at 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) have already caused dangerous and widespread losses and damages to nature and to billions of people... Losses and damages are unavoidable and unequally distributed” with poorer nations, the elderly, the poor and vulnerable hit harder. - Climate Analytics scientist Adelle Thomas

“If [offsets are] not real, additional and permanent – or if they’re used to continue fossil fuel emissions – then they will make climate change worse rather than better.” - Bill Hare

Experts and activists doubt the real capacity of governments and companies to deploy the four billion dollars a year that will be needed until 2030 to advance on the path towards energy neutrality.

Despite rays of hope, including fresh US legislation and a change of government in Brazil, progress in 2022 has been slow - with governments around the world distracted by global energy and financial crises. This article looks at seven key nations to ask who is leading the way and who is dragging their feet.

"We are now in a moment where geopolitics and energy security issues are combining to really hammer home the benefits of cheap renewables, yet we are still seeing many of these governments turning to fossil fuels as the solution." - Bill Hare