Ahead of the Curve Xpress: Tip the Balance

We're back with the first edition of the Ahead of the Curve Xpress in 2024!

We have 18 months until the pivotal COP30 in 2025: the halfway point of this decisive decade. We see this as the moment we must shift our collective mindset from ‘we can’t’ to ‘we can, and we are’.

To kick off this journey, we have built an insights pack bringing together contributions from partners across the climate community to form the basis of a shared story of possibility throughout 2024-25. We invite you to join (and guide us) in bringing this story to life:

1. Why it matters: how we imagine the future shapes the actions we take today.
2. What we know: some want us to believe the transition is stalling – it's actually happening faster than we think.
3. What we need to do: despite progress, we need to move even faster – we have two years to tip the balance.

If you would like to help share this story, you can find the insights pack, social assets and other materials on the Ahead of the Curve Trello board.

Exponential Spotlight: Change happens faster than we think

Progress is speeding up, not slowing down.

The International Energy Agency (IEA)'s Global EV Outlook 2024 shows 1 in 25 cars sold in 2020 was an electric vehicle (EV). Last year it was 1 in 5. With EV sales predicted to rise again by 20% this year, this trend is set to continue.

In less than 15 years, battery costs have fallen by more than 90% – one of the fastest declines ever seen in clean energy technologies, according to the IEA's Special Report on Batteries. Global battery manufacturing has more than tripled in the last three years and in 2023 alone, battery deployment in the power sector increased by more than 130% year-on-year.

Clean energy investment is surging.

The IEA's Advancing Clean Technology Manufacturing report shows global investment in the manufacturing of five key clean energy technologies – solar, wind, batteries, electrolysers and heat pumps – rose to USD 200 billion in 2023, an increase of more than 70% from 2022. Spending on solar PV manufacturing more than doubled last year, while investment in battery manufacturing rose by around 60%.

Industrial decarbonisation has started.

Mission Possible Partnership launched their new Global Project Tracker, shedding light on the state of transition in seven heavy industry and transport sectors. Out of the 700 green industrial plants needed by 2030, 473 have been announced, 42 are starting construction, and 68 are already operational. Companies issued a wave of project announcements in the past 12 months, but rapid acceleration is needed for these projects to start construction in the coming years.

It's a race to the top.

RMI analysis shows China is leading the way in the renewable revolution, but with Europe and the US back in the game, everything is to play for. Competition between these leading regions is stimulating more investment and innovation, and will drive down costs faster and speed up the technology transfer to the rest of the world.

A peak in emissions is now well within our grasp.

Growth in solar and wind pushed the world past 30% renewable electricity for the first time in 2023. As a result, the carbon intensity of global power generation has reached a new record low, 12% lower than its peak in 2007. Ember 's Global Electricity Review 2024 concludes that the rapid growth in solar and wind has brought the world to a crucial turning point – likely this year – where fossil generation starts to decline at a global level.

Exponential Moment: Financing the future

During the IMF Spring meetings in April, finance experts and leaders from across the community – including Mahmoud Mohieldin , Kristina Kloberdanz and Peter Zetterli – came together to discuss how to craft and elevate a narrative of possibility for finance, based on the signals of rapid change underway. The narrative will be leveraged in the run up to COP30 at key milestones to drive ambitious finance outcomes that help tip the balance by 2025.

Exponential Media

The problem with doomerism.

A recent study found that doom and gloom messaging was the worst for motivating action on climate change, with negative emotions demoralising the public into inaction, causing them to withdraw and disengage.

Climate doom is out. 'Apocalyptic optimism' is in.

Alexis Soloski explores how a focus on doom has failed to motivate citizens and interviews storytellers who believe that optimism will be what moves us to action.

"Storytelling is a tool that's available, cheap and endlessly renewable. And as a society, we will not act on climate change until we’re convinced that our action is useful and urgent."

In case you missed it...

Check out TED Explores: A New Climate Vision, a special TED Countdown documentary examining the rapid technological revolution underway. Hear from Christiana Figueres, Nigel Topping, Kingsmill Bond, Habiba Ahut Daggash, Faustine Delasalle, Nili Gilbert and more on the real possibility of a better future for all.

As governments draft a new generation of climate plans — Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) — we must all engage in a dialogue on the unstoppable momentum underway and on the unlocks that will enable us to go even faster.

Change happens faster than we think.

Groundswell is a project convened by Bezos Earth Fund , Global Optimism , and Systems Change Lab.

We’re looking to collectively tell a better story: one of the brighter future we can still create. Groundswell is an unbranded effort that aims to shift the climate narrative from one of fatalism to one of possibility. We believe that by highlighting evidence of positive transformations underway, we can collectively shift our mindset towards one of opportunity and agency, to safeguard a better future for the generations to come. Will you join us on this journey?