Former US Vice President Al Gore summarizes recent developments in technology development which make him hopeful that 2021 could become a watershed-year.

What is it about

In this Op-Ed in the New York Times former Vice President Al Gore presents his hopeful case: as the climate crisis rapidly worsens, scientists, engineers and business leaders are making use of stunning advances in technology to end the world’s dependence on fossil fuels far sooner than was hoped possible. Solar energy is one example. The cost of solar panels has fallen 89 percent in the past decade, and the cost of wind turbines has dropped 59 percent. As renewable energy costs continue to drop, many utilities are speeding up the retirement of existing fossil fuel plants well before their projected lifetimes expire and replacing them with solar and wind, plus batteries. The cost of batteries for electric vehicles has dropped by 89 percent over the past decade. Sales of internal-combustion passenger vehicles worldwide peaked in 2017.

Why is this important

The pressure is no longer coming from only a small group of pioneers, endowments, family foundations and church-based pension funds; some of the world’s largest investment firms are now joining this movement, too, having belatedly recognized that fossil fuels have been extremely poor investments for a long while. Thirty asset managers overseeing USD 9 trillion announced an agreement to align their portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050.

The Globalance View

The tipping point is near: week after week, we are now receiving reports of important investors withdrawing capital from "harmful" investments and redirecting it to urgently needed new technologies and infrastructure. The Globalance investment strategy is thus validated and strengthened. The expected technological advances are coming faster than expected.