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Installation of renewable energy worldwide hit a record high last year, with 92.5% of all new electricity brought online coming from the sun, wind or other clean sources, an international agency reports.Nearly 64% of the new renewable electricity generated in 2024 was in China, according to Wednesday’s report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Overall, the world added 585 billion watts of new renewable electrical energy, a 15.1% jump from 2023, with 46% of the world’s electricity coming from solar, wind and other green non-nuclear energy sources.But even that big jump does not put the globe on track to reach the international goal of tripling renewable energy from 2023 to 2030, with the world on pace to be 28% short, IRENA calculated. The goal was adopted in 2023 as part of the world’s efforts to curb the increasing impacts of climate change and transition away from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.“Renewable energy is powering down the fossil fuel age. Record-breaking growth is creating jobs, lowering energy bills and cleaning our air,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “But the shift to clean energy must be faster and fairer.”China added almost 374 billion watts of renewable power three quarters of it from solar panels in 2024. That’s more than eight times as much as the United States did and five times what Europe added last year.China now has nearly 887 billion watts of solar panel power, compared to 176 billion in the United States, nearly 90 billion watts in Germany, 21 billion watts in France and more than 17 billion watts in the United Kingdom.United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell used the figures Wednesday to challenge Europe and other industrialized nations to catch up with China.“As one government steps back from climate leadership, it opens up space for others to step forward and seize the vast benefits,” Stiell told European leaders in Berlin, making reference to U.S. President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. “The clean energy transition can be Europe’s economic engine-room now when new sources of growth are vital to buttress living standards and for decades to come.”Stiell said the IRENA numbers show that the “global renewables boom is unstoppable” and said the market for green energy reached $2 trillion last year.The move to renewables can grow even faster, said Neil Grant, senior policy analyst at Climate Analytics, which tracks and projects countries’ climate change fighting efforts.“If in 2024 renewables grew 15%, think how much faster they could grow with the full backing of comprehensive, credible and ambitious climate policies around the world,” said Grant, who wasn’t part of the IRENA report. The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer
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E-Commerce
Current and former government technologists reacted with shock and disbelief to reports that top Trump Administration officials used the consumer messaging app Signal to discuss and plan bombing strikes against Yemen-based Houthis. The private chat group included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. It came to public attention after its organizer, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, inexplicably invited Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to join the conversationdespite Goldberg being a frequent target of Donald Trumps criticism. Goldberg says he witnessed the full strategy session, including detailed discussions of war plans and logistics. Using a nonsecure consumer messaging app for sensitive government work is neither normal nor smart, according to several current and former government technologists. I’d never use Signal if something was classified, says Kate Green, who worked at the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) until late last year. There’s so many risks in communicating about classified information that you don’t mess around with that. You use approved channels for that. Green explains that government agency security departments configure government-issued phones to prevent users from installing commercial apps like Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp. My work phone was very locked down and managed by them, she says. So they were using Signal either on their personal devices, or they were using it on government phones that weren’t being managed by the rules of the agencies they were part of, Green says of the administration officials on the Houthi chat. No one I know wouldve been this reckless talking about sensitive matters on a nongovernment system, says another government technology leader, who until very recently worked within USDS. I cant imagine any professional I know committing this egregious a lapse in judgement.” It’s a hard line we don’t cross for obvious ethical and legal reasons, adds the ex-USDS source, but also the logistics of personal devices getting subpoenaed and FOIA’d [accessed via a Freedom of Information Act request] would be terrible. (Another ex-government source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, says people within her agencyuntil recently, the Office of Management and Budgetreceived ethics training during their first month of employment, along with extensive instruction on the proper ways to communicate about government matters.) Virginia Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated the obvious during a contentious hearing of the same committee Tuesday. Classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system, he said. If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer, and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired. Matthew Mittelsteadt, cybersecurity and emerging technologies expert at the Cato Institute, says the security of encrypted messaging apps like Signal is only as strong as the security of the end devices used to access them. In the specific case of Signal, messages may be secure when they are in transit between phones,” he says, “but once they reach the recipient, security can indeed fail. He points out that just last month, Google Threat Intelligence found actors backed by Russias GRU were actively exploiting Signals “linked devices” feature to eavesdrop on target individuals messages once they reached the individual’s inbox. As it happened, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was on a trip to Moscow during the Signal chat in question, which spanned several days. Republican Representative from Nebraska Don Bacon, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said theres no doubt that Russia and China were monitoring the devices of the U.S. officials on the Houthi text chat. Waltz claims that the Signal chat group discussed no secret war plans, nor was any classified material shared. Goldberg bluntly denied Waltzs claim during a CNN interview Monday: Thats a lie. He was texting war plans, he said.
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E-Commerce
The chief-executive-to-be at money-losing Japanese automaker Nissan is determined to speed up decision-making to come up with models that say Nissanand really sell.Ivan Espinosa, 46, chief planning officer and a Mexican with two decades of experience at Nissan Motor Corp., told reporters in embargoed comments for Wednesday that the company’s corporate culture is “lacking empathy” and has to change.“We need to work together as one single team,” he said at the Nissan Technical Center in Atsugi city on the outskirts of Tokyo. “We need to work together hand in hand.”Nissan recently appointed Espinosa to take its helm, effective April 1, replacing Makoto Uchida.Espinosa has his work cut out for him as the maker of the Sentra sedan and Infiniti luxury cars faces yet another crisis, which began decades ago when Carlos Ghosn was sent in by French alliance partner Renault to save it from the brink of bankruptcy.Ghosn was arrested by Japanese authorities in 2018 on financial misconduct allegations but jumped bail and is now in Lebanon.Uchida, chief since 2019 when Ghosn’s successor Hiroto Saikawa resigned over a separate money scandal, stepped down after the company projected a loss for the fiscal year through March.Espinosa expressed an openness to partnerships, including with parties outside the auto industry, although he declined to give specifics.Nissan recently ditched talks with Japanese rival Honda Motor Co. to set up a joint holding company. They will continue to cooperate on technology development.Espinosa repeatedly came back to the importance of being nimble. New cars will be developed in 37 months, and offshoot models within 30 months, he said.Auto production, starting with design and culminating in product tests, takes several years. Bringing a product to market in 30 months would be relatively quick for the industry.To showcase its turnaround plans, Nissan showed an array of models rolling out in the next two years for the U.S., Europe, Japan, and other markets, some of them as mockup models.Espinosa and other officials promised a lineup that highlights Nissan’s legacy, like the Leaf electric car, and models that sell in greater volumes. It’s also bringing out various ecological models, like hybrids, plug-ins and electric vehicles, and cutting-edge technology like self-driving cars.When announcing his replacement, Uchida called Espinosa “a car guy.”Espinosa, who drives a Z sportscar, Nissan’s flagship nameplate, said he saw himself as “a car lover.” He loves the stories behind each car, he said, like how it’s developed and becomes loved by customers.Analysts have so far taken a cautious approach to Espinosa’s appointment. As an insider, he takes up where Uchida left off, meaning the verdict is still out.“We view it as unlikely that Nissan would be open to becoming a subsidiary of Honda at this time, at least until the board has time to assess the effectiveness of Espinosa’s strategy, once it is unveiled and put into action,” CreditSights analysts Todd Duvick and Will Lee wrote in a recent commentary. Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@yurikageyama Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer
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