Eco-conscious and dreading 2025? Here are some green shoots of hope

The green tech revolution, a peak in China's carbon emissions and growing focus on nature are positive signs.

- David Fogarty

Farewell 2024 - the year of the Great Distraction. With climate change and nature loss growing worse, many governments proved themselves unwilling to act.

Major UN environment meetings delivered weak outcomes or kicked decisions into 2025.

Dozens of elections in 2024, some of which pushed electorates to the right, diverted the attention of many governments struggling to mitigate rising living costs.

Deepening geopolitical tensions, wars, inflation and uncertainty over the trade policies of US President-elect Donald Trump have also drained the willingness to step up action to fight climate change and save nature.

Some fear that Trump's plans to roll back climate policies will likely embolden other nations and companies to backtrack on their policies.

Adding to the sense of gloom - failure at recent talks to win agreement on a global plastics treaty and lack of consensus on a financing deal to save nature at UN talks in Colombia.

It's unclear if 2025 will be any better. But all is not lost.

Here are some themes that have the ability to put the world on a safer path.

Not all the themes are glowing with positivity. But there are green shoots of hope. China is key to several of them.

THE GREAT GREEN MARCH

The green transition is gathering pace, driven by plunging costs of renewable energy and batteries.

Global investment in clean energy technology and infrastructure is set to hit US$2 trillion (S$2.7 trillion) in 2024, twice the amount going into fossil fuels, the International Energy Agency has forecast.

China dominates the clean tech sector, spending US$675 billion in 2023, according to research organisation BloombergNEF. That's far more than any other nation.

Green tech is central to China's economy. And its global domination shows no signs of slowing, despite the trade tensions caused by cheaper Chinese solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles.