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SOURCE: Grist

DATE: July 19, 2018

SNIP: Despite clean energy’s meteoric growth, a new global assessment from the International Energy Association shows that fossil fuel projects are growing even faster. The money going to fossil fuel projects accounted for 59 percent of all energy investments last year. Sorry to say but clean energy’s share is shrinking.

“Investment in all forms of clean power, as well as in networks, would need to rise substantially,” according to the IEA report, for the world to have a shot at keeping climate change below 2 degrees Celsius.

The world put nearly $300 billion into renewables, which is a lot, enough to dominate the electric power sector.

But that’s not as much as we spent on in oil and gas drilling and exploration (also known as “upstream” investment) — $450 billion. And that doesn’t count all the money that went into building new pipelines, refineries, and gas stations.

All our driving and shipping and air travel caused oil consumption to grow by “1.6 million barrels per day,” according to the IEA. All the electric cars on the road trimmed consumption by 30,000 barrels a day.