It has long been called the holy grail of climate change, according to some as impossible to find as the Bible's equivalent. But now we see for the first time the outlines of it. The world economy is growing - and emissions are falling, albeit marginally.
To understand the enormity of what is happening, you can take a look in the rearview mirror. In recent years, we have seen an astonishing development in renewable energy, first through solar and wind power and now also in battery technology. It is one of the biggest success stories in the world's climate work.
Even the most optimistic forecasts have not come close to predicting the growth. When the international energy agency IEA produced its forecast for solar energy in 2015, it was estimated that the world would have 420 GW of installed solar cell capacity in 2025.
To be clear: it was a conservative forecast.
Somewhat later, Greenpeace developed a radical scenario which they named Energy (r)evolution. In the envisioned energy revolution, solar energy would experience an explosive development and reach a whopping 1,603 GW of installed capacity in 2025.
Then reality set in. In August this year, the world passed 3,000 GW of solar cells globally.
That's almost twice as much as in Greenpeace's dream scenario - and around seven times more than the effect of all the world's nuclear power plants (the analogy is a bit lame because of course solar cells don't produce electricity around the clock, but it's still an interesting figure).
The problem? The shockingly rapid development in renewable energy has so far only added to a growing fossil pie. 2025 was a record year for solar and wind energy – but also for oil, fossil gas and even coal power.
We are not in an energy transition. We are, at least in a global perspective, in an energy addition.
Emissions from fossil fuels have never declined, except during periods of global economic downturn. Like the financial crisis or the pandemic.
That's how it has been - until this year. For the first time, the world economy is expected to grow and emissions to fall, according to the annual report Global Carbon Budget.
The reduction is admittedly modest, at 0.4 percent. But still: 2026 offers the first glimpse of what a world with a growing economy and shrinking emissions could look like.
According to the report, the main explanation for the success is precisely the very rapid development in renewable energy.
The big climate hero in this context, if the term is allowed, is China. The country has five times more renewable energy installed than the second in the world (the United States). China has also created a price dump on renewable energy technology that allows other countries to follow suit.
But an almost equally decisive contribution this year comes from Donald Trump. Calling him a climate hero may not be appropriate, but through their attack on Iran, the US and Israel have involuntarily imposed a kind of global climate tax on oil and gas. Without the global fossil price shock in the wake of the war, emissions would never have decreased.
The use of coal power is indeed increasing in many countries, to ensure access to energy, but the reduction in fossil gas and oil is even greater.
And the world economy is growing despite the energy crisis, according to the IMF's forecast - albeit not as fast as usual.
Is this the trend breaker the world has been waiting for? Hardly. The energy crisis certainly hastens investments in renewable energy, but as soon as the war is over, the prices of oil and gas will drop and give a rebound in emissions.
But perhaps we can still learn from 2026. To really find the holy grail of the energy transition, both investments in fossil-free energy are needed - and powerful policy instruments to get rid of fossil fuels.
It is not as beautiful as many might have hoped. But it is proven to work.
