by Dan Roscoe, President of Renewall
In just a decade, clean energy has gone from ambition to infrastructure, powering more of the world than coal, cutting costs, and bending global emissions downward. The question is no longer “Can we change?” It's “How fast can we keep going?”
The 2020s will be remembered as the decade where climate action moved from aspiration to evidence. For the first time in modern history, global data shows meaningful progress. Renewable energy is growing faster than demand. Emissions are leveling off. Entire economies are shifting from fossil dependence to clean growth.
The challenge now is not invention but acceleration.
Renewable energy is no longer nibbling at the edges of the old system, it is instead, becoming the new system.
The numbers tell a story that seemed impossible just a generation ago. In 2024, the world added 585 gigawatts of new renewable power, the largest increase in history, roughly enough to cover the annual electricity use of every home in North America.
Investment is following the trend. Clean-energy spending hit $2.1 trillion this year, outpacing fossil-fuel investment for the second year running. Markets are signalling what scientists have long argued. The energy transition is not a niche. It is the dominant growth story of the century.
And the climate impact is becoming measurable. Based on current national commitments, the UN expects global emissions could fall 10% by 2035. It is not yet enough, but it is directionally significant. For decades, emissions rose relentlessly. Now, the world is building the capacity to reverse that curve.
These are systemic milestones, rather than isolated successes. They show that renewable energy is quickly becoming the backbone of the global grid.
Clean energy is succeeding not simply because the world wants it to, but because the economics have finally aligned with the mission.
Since 2010, the cost of solar power has fallen 75%, wind 62%, and batteries an astonishing 93%. And these declines aren’t slowing. Every doubling of installed capacity reduces costs another 15–25 percent. This is the learning curve at work. The more we build, the cheaper it gets to build more.
In 2024, an extraordinary 91% of new renewable projects delivered electricity at prices lower than the cheapest fossil-fuel alternative. Doing the right thing for the planet has become the financially smart choice. That is the breakthrough moment the world has waited for.
Clean energy is powered by market logic, industrial strategy, and the sheer competitiveness of technology. But beneath the global charts and investment figures is a much more human story.
The clean-energy sector now employs more than 35 million people worldwide. Many of these jobs are in regions once defined by fossil extraction and heavy industry. Wind technicians, solar installers, electrical workers, engineers, community planners, these roles represent not just employment but identity, stability, and renewal.
Clean energy brings tax revenue, local infrastructure, long-term contracts, and energy security to communities. It is reshaping local economies at a pace few expected. In Atlantic Canada, analysts project more than 100,000 clean-energy jobs could be created by mid-century. That‘s a regional economic strategy unfolding in real time.
The clean energy transition is not only technical. It is personal. It lives in paycheques, apprenticeships, small businesses, and families planning their futures around a new kind of opportunity.
This global shift is not something happening “out there.” It is happening here in Nova Scotia too.
Two decades ago, nearly 90% of Nova Scotia’s electricity came from coal. Today, the province is on track to reach 80% renewables by 2030, one of the most ambitious transitions in North America.
Local projects are driving that progress. The Mersey River Wind project, now underway, represents one of the most significant clean-energy investments in Atlantic Canada. It will deliver locally generated, affordable renewable power for decades. And soon, through Renewall Energy, Nova Scotians will gain their first real choice in where their electricity comes from. Clean, predictable, homegrown energy will finally be accessible to households and businesses across the province.
The same story playing out across Europe, Asia, and the United States is unfolding on Nova Scotia’s grid.
Forecasts from the International Energy Agency suggest global renewable capacity will double again by 2030. That pace would have been unimaginable twenty years ago. The 2020s began with skepticism. They may end as the decade that demonstrated the world can change course.
We don’t have to imagine climate progress anymore. We can see it.
Every megawatt added, every home powered by renewable energy, and every community investing in clean infrastructure is proof that change works.
Climate progress is happening now, and it is only accelerating.
Dan Roscoe is the President of Renewall Energy, a renewable energy provider, and CEO of Roswall Development, a renewable energy developer, both based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His work is focused on building the infrastructure for a cleaner, smarter energy future across Canada and beyond.
