My Climate Change News

More than 300 solar projects in the U.S. have been canceled or delayed in 2022 due to lack of equipment. Image via Shutterstock/Bilanol

The current global energy crisis has generated a new surge of enthusiasm about the future of renewable energy. Advocates of solar and wind power are seizing this moment of rising prices and tight supplies for fossil fuels due to war in Ukraine - coupled with record-shattering heat waves around the world and warnings of power shortages to come this summer - to argue for accelerating the move to clean energy. The unprecedented blowup of traditional energy practices, they say, makes this the absolutely right time to shift the transition into a higher gear.

Indeed, the immediate future for renewable energy looks bright: 320 gigawatts of generating capacity, led by solar and wind, are projected to go on line this year, according to the latest report from the International Energy Agency.

But the race to turbocharge the shift to clean energy has been slowed by unforeseen obstacles - in the form of trade policy and business model hiccups. How these speed bumps are navigated will determine if the speed of adoption for solar and wind power can be increased or whether the projected rapid growth will stall out - a crucial issue as increasing alarms are being sounded that limiting a rise in global warming to the target of 1.5 Celsius is in question.

Just how dark are these storm clouds? Chief among them is a lawsuit that has canceled or delayed more than 300 solar projects in the U.S. A legal action filed by Auxin Solar, a U.S. solar component manufacturer, has triggered an investigation by the U.S. Department of Commerce into whether China is evading U.S.-imposed tariffs by re-shoring solar panel production in other Asian countries. It turns out that Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam provide 82 percent of the solar modules most commonly used in the U.S. Auxin claims this equipment is really Chinese in...