Energy, Climate Change and Environment  

Efforts to respond to climate change are changing the way the energy sector is developing, and the increased
ambition of the Paris Agreement on climate change, agreed at COP21 in December 2015, is accelerating
that shift. The Paris Agreement represents a landmark, one in which the transition to low-carbon development
paths and low-carbon energy systems is now widely seen as the “new normal”. While the speed of the transition
remains uncertain – with different paces altering the eventual climate implications – the direction of travel and
eventual need for deep emissions reductions in the energy sector are clear. The increased climate ambition in the Paris
Agreement was made possible in part by improvements in low-carbon energy technologies, notably the falling costs of
renewable energy. This was most dramatic for onshore wind, for which costs fell by an estimated 30% on average, and
for new utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, for which costs declined by two-thirds, between 2010 and
2015. During the previous attempt to negotiate a new global climate agreement, in Copenhagen in 2009, a low carbon energy system was largely seen as hypothetical.