This year was the beginning of a green transition

For almost half a century, the world has talked about quitting its addiction to fossil fuels. Yet year after year, we remain stuck with the same old dirty energy system.

The consequences of that delay are now upon us, with the climate crisis breaching our front door. Extreme rainfall in Pakistan affected more than 33 million people this year, with some communities converted into lakes. In Florida, Hurricane Ian caused more than $50 billion in insured damage, making it the second most expensive hurricane in the country’s history. In the Western United States, drought left the nation’s two largest reservoirs nearly three-quarters empty.

But when we look back a decade from now, we may find that 2022 was an inflection point. New policies in the United States and Europe, and elections in Australia and Brazil, are creating momentum toward clean energy. If moving away from dirty energy is like rerouting a giant ship, then this could be the year when world leaders started to turn the tanker around.

An “energy transition” sounds smooth and orderly. But in a year with a brutal war that turned global energy markets upside down, we learned that that’s not the way this kind of change will happen. It’s going to be a bumpy ride — an energy disruption.

If we look at the periods when the energy system shifted dramatically, whether in 1979 or 2022, there’s a clear pattern: crisis. When energy supply grows scarce and fossil fuel prices shoot through the roof, governments act.

The responses might be Band-Aids — bringing down prices in the short term but doing little to change dependence on dirty energy. Or they could be like major surgery — fundamentally altering energy infrastructure. It’s the latter changes that really count, because they’re harder to reverse.

After more than three decades of largely failed efforts, Congress passed a series of climate bills aimed squarely at infrastructure. The biggest one, the Inflation Reduction Act, is projected to invest around $370 billion in clean industries. Much of the funding will flow through unlimited tax credits to households for everything from electric vehicles to solar panels to heat pumps that run on electricity rather than gas.

Initially, it seemed like this package would fail to make it over the finish line. The bill died and was reincarnated again and again. Ultimately, high energy prices created the conditions for action. By one estimate, fossil fuel price increases drove 41 percent of inflation in the United States.

The law will also be hard to roll back, even if Republicans get a chance in the future, because it’s creating well-paid jobs in America. Private companies have invested north of $100 billion in electric vehicles, charging infrastructure and solar. Many new jobs will be in Republican states and districts. At a BMW event in October, Senator Lindsey Graham said his state of South Carolina “is going to become the Detroit of batteries.”

America’s new energy laws are far from perfect. They include investments in fossil fuel infrastructure, like gas-powered buses. And so far, many electric utilities are resisting updating their plans to build clean energy faster. Congress had proposed incentives for them to do this as part of the climate package, but Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia refused to let that provision move forward.

Yet overall these new laws will set the United States on a permanent course away from fossil fuels — even if the journey has ups and downs.

This year will also likely be a turning point for Europe. The energy crisis, driven by Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, has all but cut off Europe from its largest source of fossil gas. In response, prices have surged — in August, gas in the European Union cost a whopping 12 times more than at the start of 2021.

The explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September that damaged a key link between Russia and Europe will only accelerate these trends. Widely believed to be an act of sabotage, it’s unclear if the pipelines can be repaired. Most likely, the damage will permanently reduce Europe’s access to fossil fuels.

Given these disruptions, Europe has accelerated its plans to move toward clean energy. In November, the European Union decided to speed up permitting and installation for renewable energy projects by setting maximum timelines for everything from solar panels to heat pumps. E.U. negotiators also recently completed a deal to cut carbon pollution faster this decade.

In October and November, gas usage in Europe was roughly a quarter below its five-year average for the same period. Part of this reduction is from people changing their behavior to save energy, a trend that could be temporary. But in the first half of 2022, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy and Austria saw massive growth in sales of heat pumps. The buildings that now have heat pumps are unlikely to ever return to burning gas, even if the geopolitical situation shifts.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times