Attending a prestigious high school in California can provide you with a plethora of information on the state of the world and the current events that continue to impact our daily lives. However, Marlborough can act as a bubble, hearing only the opinions of highly informed intellectuals that are constantly looking for issues to improve. These issues, although motivating and inspiring, can alternatively cause feelings of helplessness regarding the environment and climate change, and foster the mindset that we are constantly moving backwards. This is not the case.
For instance, many countries such as China are taking measures to turn the status of generated power around by using renewable energy sources like solar power. China has successfully created the world’s largest offshore open-sea solar project and the world’s second largest solar plant. Their power plants, which will generate 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours per year and would be able to generate electricity to over 2.7 million homes, are planned to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.3 million tons every year. China ultimately has over 600 gigawatts of solar capacity, and plans to continue their offshore plants to be able to generate more power.
In addition to China improving the production of power and electricity, Indonesia is working hard to move towards renewable energy and eliminating their use of fossil fuels. Indonesia has set a goal to phase out all coal and gas power within the next 15 years as coal is currently the country’s top source of energy generation. Indonesia also is the seventh largest economy in the world and is 80% powered by fossil fuels, but with their changes Indonesia will improve their impact on climate change through increasing their renewable energy capacity significantly to 75 gigawatts and shooting for net zero.
More is going on throughout the world in terms of altering the regulation for cars and gas-powered vehicles. For instance, six European Union (EU) climate chiefs continue their stance of the ban of petrol vehicles in 2035 and have manufactured a new plant to recycle 200,000 kg of electric vehicle (EV) batteries per year in addition to recovering 95% of their cathode metals to reuse in battery manufacturing. These recycled materials can reduce greenhouse gas emissions for a new EV by 25% and save 3806 kg of carbon dioxide by equivalent. Beyond the EU, Ethiopia has banned the importation of gas-powered private vehicles and the US plans to build 11,600 fast-charging EV stations this year, improving by 35% in the past year.
All of these shifts in their energy generation and EV encouragement will greatly alter the state of climate change and should be inspiring for the younger generations to keep working hard to change the state of the world. These improvements are also just the beginning and such a small fraction of the actions that countries are taking. Climate change is an important issue and battle, but one that should motivate instead of beat down. We can and will change the state of the world for the better, and looking at both positive and negative information can provide a more accurate bigger picture.
