Out of 52 climate targets needed to reach net zero by 2050, only six are on track or have been met. The other 46 are behind, failing, or marked as Code Red. This is according to the Speed & Scale tracker, a detailed public scorecard that measures if the global economy is cutting emissions fast enough.

The tracker is part of an initiative started in 2021 by investor John Doerr, known for backing Google and Amazon early on. He used Silicon Valley’s Objectives and Key Results method to tackle the climate crisis. The 2026 edition comes with a new letter from Doerr called “Let’s Build, Friends, Build,” a call to focus on the need to build solutions. As he puts it, pledges alone won’t cool the planet—real progress comes from cutting emissions.

How the Tracker Works

Speed & Scale breaks down decarbonization into 10 main goals, such as electrifying transportation and investing in clean energy. Each goal has measurable key results with targets for 2035 and 2050. Progress is rated on a five-level scale, from Achieved to Code Red. Code Red is the worst rating and is given to areas with over 3 gigatons of yearly emissions and little or no progress.

The 2026 update now uses Climate TRACE, a satellite and AI system, instead of UN country reports to measure emissions. This change raised the baseline from 59 gigatons in 2019 to 74 gigatons in 2024. The increase is not due to a sudden jump in emissions, but because TRACE finds fossil-fuel activity that country reports often miss. Atmospheric CO₂ is now at 429 parts per million, which is about 53 percent higher than before the industrial era.

Where Cost Curves Are Winning

The key results that are on track have one thing in common: clean technology has become the cheaper choice. Electric vehicles show this best. There were about one million EVs on the road ten years ago, but now there are over 50 million. EVs make up more than 20 percent of new car sales worldwide and over half in China. In the first nine months of 2025, enough solar and wind power was built to stop the growth of fossil fuels in electricity. According to BloombergNEF, solar costs have fallen by 84 percent since 2010.

There are now three million more clean-energy jobs than fossil-fuel jobs worldwide, according tothe International Energy Agency. For the 249 Fortune Global 500 companies that report their direct emissions (Scope 1 and 2), those emissions have dropped by 23 percent since 2019. However, Scope 3 emissions, which include supply chain and product use, make up about 95 percent of their total and are not decreasing as quickly.

Code Red: Where the Cost Curve Hasn’t Bent

Methane emissions from oil and gas operations are still going up, even though the IEA says 75 percent could be cut using current technology, often at a net savings. Methane is about 80 times more powerful than CO₂ over 20 years, making it the most cost-effective way to cut emissions, yet progress is going in the wrong direction.

BuildingMost building heating and cooling still relies on fossil fuels, even as a million new buildings are added each month. Heavy industry is also behind: there are no commercial-scale zero-carbon steel plants and only one net-zero cement facility in the world. The tracker says we need 700 steel and 300 cement plants by 2035. Industrial agriculture and livestock are also rated Code Red. Carbon removal is far behind too—by 2025, just over one million metric tons have been removed, according to CDR.fyi, but the plan calls for 14 billion tons per year by 2050.

Where Each Objective Stands

The Build Imperative — and the 1.5°C Verdict

In his new letter, Doerr says the climate challenge is now shaped by three main forces: rising demand for electricity, the global politics of clean-tech manufacturing, and falling costs thanks to market forces. He writes, “We cannot cut fossil fuels without building the alternative.” The updated tracker shows this change. While the 2021 plan focused on percentage reductions, the 2026 version spells out what needs to be built: 600 million EVs, 700 zero-carbon steel mills, and 30,000 TWh of solar and wind power.

Doerr also shares the toughest update: Speed & Scale now says keeping global warming to 1.5°C is no longer possible. Five more years of rising emissions have used up the remaining carbon budget. The new goal is to stay below 2°C, with the U.S., EU, and China aiming for net zero by 2050.

The post The World Has a Decarbonization Scoreboard. Here’s What It Says. appeared first on Earth911.

The global energy system is changing in two big ways: it is moving from centralized fossil-fuel generation to distributed renewables, and it is becoming more digital in how energy is measured, traded, and optimized. Steve Wilhite, Executive Vice President of Advisory Services at Schneider Electric, works at the intersection of these complementary yet challenging transitions. Schneider supports more than 40% of the Fortune 500 with energy procurement and sustainability strategies, managing over $50 billion in annual energy spending. His experience shows something that pledges and press releases often miss: the biggest challenge for corporate sustainability is not money, technology, or political will. The real issue is the gap between ambition and the ability to deliver. Companies are making Science-Based Targets commitments faster than they are building the infrastructure to meet them. Scope one and two emissions are being managed better, but scope three emissions, which come from a company’s supply chain, still present a systems problem that no single company can solve alone. Schneider’s zero-carbon supplier program suggests what it takes to close this gap. When the company started its own effort to cut emissions from its top 1,000 suppliers by 50% in five years, all 1,000 signed up within two weeks. However, about 84% of them did not fully understand what they had agreed to. Achieving success meant creating measurement tools, education programs, and action plans to help the whole ecosystem, not just individual companies.

This critical conversation explores how renewable energy is bought, including the difference between physical and virtual power purchase agreements. Steve also explains why the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) market became more complex as it grew, and why 10% fewer renewable deals closed in 2025 compared to 2024, as tech companies used up available clean energy. He also addresses a key question in clean energy: is AI helping the environment overall, or do its energy needs still outweigh its efficiency benefits? Schneider processes over a million energy invoices each month, and about 50,000 of them had issues that took 10 to 15 business days to resolve. Now, a team of AI systems can handle these in seconds. Accurate energy consumption and billing data directly affect emissions reporting, energy efficiency, and money-saving market decisions. He describes Schnieder’s approach as “frugal AI”: using the right-sized models for each task, running them on clean energy, and choosing simple solutions over complex ones. Looking ahead, electrification is building a global digital energy network in which every meter and adjustment contributes to a new system independent of central plants. As intelligence spreads, power can shift to consumers, communities, and businesses. Schneider is enabling this shift by building a mesh grid in which each point both produces and consumes energy, coordinated by AI. These changes fundamentally reshape the global energy landscape. The central question: will we intentionally build this new, distributed system, or will we repeat centralized patterns digitally?

To learn more about Schneider Electric’s sustainability efforts, visit se.com.

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Interview Transcript

The post Sustainability In Your Ear: Schneider Electric’s Steve Wilhite Maps the Renewable Energy Transition appeared first on Earth911.