Powering the future - five clean energy megaprojects

If the world's nations are to reach their goal of holding global average temperature increases to between 1.5 and 2.0°C by 2100 - as agreed to in the 2016 Paris Agreement and reiterated at the 26th Conference of the Parties in Glasgow in 2021 - they will have to undertake immediate efforts to decarbonize their electricity and transportation sectors. According to a 2021 carbon reduction road map produced by the International Energy Agency, electric vehicles will have to make up more than half of global new car sales by 2030, up from just 7.2 percent in 2021. By 2035, wealthy countries will have to shut down virtually all fossil-fuel power plants in favor of cleaner technologies such as wind, solar, hydropower and nuclear power. By 2040, all of the world's remaining coal plants will need to be decommissioned or retrofitted with technology to capture their carbon emissions and bury them underground.