Green energy can't yet bend the climate curve (Editorial)

📌 Summary:

• Context: Despite record clean-energy additions, global warming reached 1.37 degrees C in 2025 (Indicators of Global Climate Change report, Earth System Science Data) — even as a heatwave swept Europe and other regions
• Core argument: The expansion in renewables, though significant, is still not enough to check the rise in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
• Causal chain / why renewables alone fall short: (1) Last year solar, wind and hydro edged out fossil fuels as the predominant source of power — but power is only one sector (2) Large parts of industry (and partly transport) still run on fossil fuels; cleaner alternatives like green hydrogen take time and heavy investment (3) Sustainable equipment has high upfront costs and integrating green tech with legacy systems needs R&D
• India-China role: The world's two most populous countries led the charge in adding clean energy installations
• Solutions proposed: National policies should nudge manufacturers toward energy-efficient machines, recyclable materials (e.g., recycled aluminium needs far less energy than new aluminium) and waste minimisation; deeper academia-government and inter-government cooperation
• Key gap flagged: Technology know-how transfer has been the 'Achilles heel' of global warming mitigation

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 (Environment) — energy transition, hard-to-abate sectors, GHG mitigation, and the equity/technology-transfer dimension of climate policy.

🔑 Key Term: Hard-to-abate sectors — industries (steel, cement, aluminium, heavy transport) where emissions are difficult to cut because they rely on high-heat or chemical processes not easily electrified.