Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming

by Paul Hawken

The International Renewable Energy Agency already credits 220 million to 330 million tons of annual carbon dioxide savings to solar photovoltaics, and they are less than 2 percent of the global electricity mix at present. Could solar meet 20 percent of global energy needs by 2027, as some University of Oxford researchers calculate? Thanks to complementary government interventions and market progress, there are many promising signs: costs reaching “grid parity” with fossil fuel generation and dropping, the typical solar panel factory churning out hundreds of megawatts of solar capacity each year, and panels lasting easily for twenty-five years, if not decades more. In 2015, solar PV met almost 8 percent of electricity demand in Italy and more than 6 percent in Germany and Greece, leaders in the solar revolution. PV has had a long history of surpassing expectations and taking unexpected leaps forward. Hand in hand with distributed solar and supported by the right enabling technologies, the “new era” cited by the New York Times in 1954 is becoming reality. •