EAA Web Session 10 Years since Paris Climate Accord – Sunny Future or Rainy Days?

In 2016 the Paris Climate Accords came into force, with signatory nations committing to limit global warming to well below 2°C, ideally to under 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels. A decade later, it’s time to assess the progress in the context of the global energy sector’s transition.
While global temperatures continue to rise and yearly emissions reached new records, the expected temperature increase by 2100 under the ‚business as usual‘ scenario of the UN and other organizations has been reduced by 1°C since 2015.
This significant and previously unexpected reduction can primarily be attributed to the
substantial expansion of solar energy worldwide, which has increased tenfold since 2015, and whose production now exceeds that of nuclear power during the summer months.
The web session will shed light on the implications of this dramatic increase in electricity production form solar power. In addition, related key developments in the energy sector will be analyzed, that contributed to the decline of the rise in the predicted temperature. For example, what impact did the coal phase-out in Belgium (2016), the United Kingdom (2024), and Ireland (2025) have? What have been the effects of the global expansion of wind and solar energy? Is green hydrogen already contributing to decarbonization? Has the adoption of electric vehicles had a noticeable effect on oil demand?
Together, we will look back at the developments since 2015 and examine scenarios for the technologies that have proven to be successful.