The world installed 117 gigawatts of new wind power capacity in 2023, a 50% increase from the year before, making it the best year for new wind projects on record, according to a new report by the industry's trade association.
The latest Global Wind Report, published Tuesday by the Global Wind Energy Council, explores the state of the global wind industry and the challenges it's facing in its expansion.
The increase in wind installations “shows that the world is moving in the right direction in combating climate change,” the report said.
But the authors warned that the wind industry must increase its annual growth to at least 320 gigawatts by 2030 in order to meet the COP28 pledge to triple the world’s installed renewable energy generation capacity by 2030, as well as to meet the Paris Agreement’s ambition of capping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).
“It’s great to see wind industry growth picking up, and we are proud of reaching a new annual record,” said GWEC CEO Ben Backwell, “however much more needs to be done to unlock growth.”
Still, the report shows that wind is becoming “better understood and appreciated across the globe for the value it brings as a renewable energy source,” said George Aluru, CEO of the Electricity Sector Association of Kenya, an industry body for private investors in electricity.
“This increased renewable energy supply supports climate goals in line with ensuring sustainable development,” he said.
With the growing impacts of climate change, wind power and other renewable energy sources are seen as a key to reducing electricity generation from fossil fuels and mitigating climate change. Renewables are the cheapest form of electricity in many parts of the world and among the cheapest in most others.
The global cumulative wind power capacity now totals 1,021 gigawatts.
Christian Andresen, research manager at SINTEF Energy Research, a Norway-based independent institute for applied research in the energy sector, said the report shows that the wind industry is “picking up pace” by attracting investments and gaining maturity, and that may lead to a snowball effect leading to future growth.
For the planet, he said, it indicates that it is possible to ramp up to reach climate targets.
“This is an important building block in the transition towards a net-zero emission society,” said Andresen.
As was the case in 2022, China led all other countries for both new onshore and offshore wind power installations in 2023. It had 65% of new installations, and was followed by the U.S., Brazil and Germany, respectively. Together, these four countries accounted for 77% of new installations globally last year.
The report notes that growth in wind power installations is highly concentrated in a few big countries and links that to strong market frameworks to scale wind installations in those countries. The top five markets at the end of last year remained as China, the U.S., Germany, India and Spain.
Still, some other countries and regions are coming up, having witnessed record levels of growth in 2023.
Africa and the Middle East installed nearly 1 gigawatt of wind power capacity in 2023, almost triple that of the previous year. With upcoming projects in South Africa, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the report predicts that new onshore wind additions for Africa and the Middle East will grow fivefold by 2028 compared with 2023.
Some of the markets to watch include Kenya, where windpower provides around 17% of electricity, the report said. The country has the largest wind farm in Africa, the 310-megawatt Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, and the report notes new planned large-scale wind projects in the country, including a 1-gigawatt wind park by local power generator KenGen.
But building wind power installations is expensive and entails high up-front investments, and emerging and developing countries face higher cost of capital and pay higher loan rates to build out their wind.
Wind energy also faces supply chain and grid challenges, and innovation in the electricity system is needed to integrate intermittent wind energy onto the grid while retaining reliability, said Erin Baker, a professor of industrial engineering and operations research at the University of Massachusetts. Offshore wind, she said as an example, has some very specialized equipment and manufacturing, and also requires expertise in finance and business models.
But the accelerating growth of wind energy, as shown in the report, means that countries are developing the supply chains needed to keep this growth up, and it will “almost certainly” lead to reductions in cost and improvements in the technology as more and more is built around the world, she said.
“The recent growth, and nations support for the wind industry, are hopeful signs that the supply chain is being established,” said Baker.
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FILE - Wind turbines operate on March 7, 2024, in Palm Springs, Calif. According to a new report published Tuesday, April 16, 2024, last year, marked the best year for new wind projects. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)
FILE - Guests observe turbines at Block Island Wind Farm, an offshore wind farm, Dec. 7, 2023, off the coast of Block Island, R.I. According to a new report published Tuesday, April 16, 2024, last year, marked the best year for new wind projects. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)
FILE - Beachgoers walk near wind turbines along the coast of Pingtan in Southern China's Fujian province, on Aug. 6, 2022. According to a new report published Tuesday, April 16, 2024, last year, marked the best year for new wind projects. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
FILE - Wind turbines operate at an energy plant near Stetten, north of Kaiserslautern, Germany, as the sun rises on, March 19, 2024. According to a new report published Tuesday, April 16, 2024, last year, marked the best year for new wind projects. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)
Israel's military says its forces are in “operational control” of the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, pressing their offensive into the southern city on Tuesday as cease-fire negotiations with Hamas remain precarious.
The assault came just hours after Hamas said it accepted a cease-fire proposal mediated by Egypt and Qatar. Israel insisted the deal did not meet its core demands.
Rafah is filled with more than a million displaced civilians huddling in tents and overcrowded apartments, and the border crossing is the main entry point for desperately needed aid. The United Nations secretary general warned that a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah would create “a humanitarian nightmare.”
Israel says Rafah is Hamas' last stronghold, however the United States opposes a full-scale invasion of the city unless Israel provides a “credible” plan for protecting civilians there. A main hospital in Rafah had to be evacuated Tuesday due to intense Israeli strikes in the area, a Health Ministry spokesperson said.
The war in Gaza has driven around 80% of the territory's population of 2.3 million from their homes and caused vast destruction to apartments, hospitals, mosques and schools across several cities. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials.
The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Currently:
— Israeli forces take control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
— The U.N. says there’s ‘full-blown famine’ in northern Gaza. What does that mean?
— Hamas accepts cease-fire proposal for Gaza, after Israel orders Rafah evacuation ahead of attack.
— Biden speaks with Netanyahu as Israelis appear closer to major Rafah offensive.
— Bernie Sanders says Gaza may be Joe Biden’s Vietnam. But he’s ready to battle for Biden over Trump.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Here's the latest:
BERLIN — German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Tuesday warned Israel of “a major offensive on Rafah.”
“I strongly caution against conducting a major offensive on Rafah,” the minister wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“One million people cannot vanish into thin air. They need protection. They urgently need further humanitarian assistance,” she added, demanding that ”the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings must be reopened immediately.”
Germany has for decades been a staunch supporter of Israel. Berlin, however, has gradually shifted its tone as civilian casualties in Gaza have soared, becoming increasingly critical of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. In recent weeks, Baerbock has repeatedly spoken out against a ground offensive in Rafah.
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey called on Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza’s Rafah border crossing and warned that any military action in the southern city would have global implications.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “was not acting in good faith” when he escalated attacks on Rafah just as the Hamas militant group accepted a cease-fire proposal, said Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oncu Keceli in a statement Tuesday.
“An operation targeting Rafah will affect not only the region but the whole world,” Keceli said. “It is essential that Israel immediately withdraw from the Gaza section of the Rafah border crossing that it has occupied. There must be an immediate return to the status quo in Rafah and the border crossing.”
CAIRO — The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said Tuesday that one of the main hospitals in the southernmost city of Rafah was evacuated due to intense Israeli strikes in the area.
Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for the ministry, said the evacuation of all the patients of Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital began late Monday and finished Tuesday. All have been transferred to other medical facilities and makeshift hospitals nearby, he said, without elaborating. It remains unclear if there has been any damage to the facility.
The ministry’s announcement comes hours after Israel began a ground assault on Rafah and ordered the evacuation of eastern areas of the city. The hospital does not fall within the Israeli-designated evacuation zone.
Dialysis patients were some of the last remaining in Abu Youssef al-Najjar according to the hospital’s manager, Marwan al-Husm, who spoke with The Associated Press earlier Tuesday.
The hospital is one of the largest medical facilities in southern Gaza, and is the latest to be forced to halt operations since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7.
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations chief is appealing to Israel and Hamas to show “political courage and spare no effort” to reach a cease-fire agreement now, warning that this is a decisive moment for Palestinians and Israelis “and for the fate of the entire region.”
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Tuesday that he is “disturbed and distressed” by the Israeli Defense Forces’ renewed military activity in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, where some 1.3 million Palestinians had fled seeking safety.
“An assault on Rafah would be a strategic mistake, a political calamity, and a humanitarian nightmare,” he said. ”Make no mistake — a full-scale assault on Rafah would be a human catastrophe.”
Guterres said Palestinians will be forced to flee again, with “nowhere safe to go” in Gaza, and there will be “countless more civilian casualties.”
The secretary-general stressed that Rafah is the center of U.N. and global humanitarian operations in Gaza and “the closure of both the Rafah and Karem Shalom crossings is especially damaging to an already dire humanitarian situation.”
“They must be reopened immediately,” he said.
Guterres appealed to “all those with influence over Israel to do everything in their power to help avert even more tragedy” – and promote a humanitarian cease-fire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and the delivery of life-saving aid.
BEIRUT— A Hezbollah-claimed drone attack targeted northern Israel on Tuesday, sparking a fire at one location, authorities said.
The Lebanese militant group said its attack targeted “enemy officers and soldiers” around Yiftah, some 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Jerusalem.
The Israeli military said its air defenses intercepted one target around Yiftah, while another fell and “a fire broke out at the scene.” Two other objects fell in an open area, while the rest “fell and caused light damage,” the Israeli military said.
The military acknowledged no casualties and declined to identify the objects as drones.
Hezbollah has been supplied with Iranian bomb-carrying drones and has previously used them to attack Israel.
GENEVA — Israel has strict obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure the safety of civilians in Gaza, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office said, hours after Israeli forces seized the Rafah border crossing with Egypt in a push against the southern city.
Ravina Shamdasani said that Israel is under obligations to make sure that civilians have access to medical care, adequate food, safe water and sanitation.
“Failure to meet these obligations may amount to forced displacement, which is a war crime,” she said.
Referring to the Israeli operation in Rafah, Shamdasani added: “There are strong indications that this is being conducted in violation of international humanitarian law.”
GENEVA — The U.N. humanitarian aid agency said Tuesday that Israeli authorities have denied it access to the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt that is now in the control of the Israeli Defense Forces.
“Rafah is in the crosshairs,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at a regular briefing in Geneva.
“IDF is ignoring all warnings about what this could mean for civilians and for the humanitarian operation across the Gaza Strip,” he added. “I think it’s fair to say that the reports that we get from colleagues on the ground is that panic and despair has taken hold: People are terrified.”
He said 76% of the territory of Gaza is “under evacuation orders” and people in Rafah have not been given adequate time to abide by evacuation orders.
Laerke said the operations of the U.N. and its partners in Gaza have a “very, very short buffer of about one day of fuel” — primarily diesel to run trucks and generators. “It’s not like there are huge warehouses full of aid” in Gaza because as a general rule it’s distributed upon entry, he said.
BEIRUT — Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that a March 27 Israeli strike on a paramedic center in south Lebanon that killed seven emergency service workers “was an unlawful attack on civilians that failed to take all necessary precautions.”
It added that U.S.-supplied arms were used in the strike in the village of Hebbariye that was carried out using a U.S.-made joint direct attack munition guidance kit and an Israeli-made 500-pound (about 230 kilograms) general purpose bomb.
The rights group called for Washington to stop providing arms to Israel “given evidence that the Israeli military is using US weapons unlawfully.”
Israel at the time of the strike said it had hit a “military compound” and killed a “significant terrorist operative” from the Jamaa Islamiya, or Islamic Group, a Lebanese Sunni political group with an armed wing that has sometimes joined forces with the Shiite Hezbollah militant group as it has clashes with Israeli forces on the border over the past seven months.
Human Rights Watch said it found “no evidence of a military target” at the Lebanese Succour Association-run paramedic center that was struck, and that Islamic Group officials and family members of the seven people killed said they were civilians.
The Islamic Group said that while some of its supporters volunteered as paramedics with the association, “they do not include any fighters from its armed wing.” The report noted that under international law, warring parties “have a duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians” and “in case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person must be considered a civilian.”
Israeli strikes have killed more than 370 people in Lebanon over the past seven months, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups, but also including more than 70 civilians and non-combatants. In Israel, strikes launched from Lebanon have killed 14 soldiers and 10 civilians.
JERUSALEM — An Israeli tank brigade has seized control of the Gaza Strip side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, authorities say, moving forward with an offensive in the southern city even as cease-fire negotiations with Hamas remain on a knife’s edge.
The move comes after hours of whiplash in the Israel-Hamas war, with the militant group on Monday saying it accepted an Egyptian-Qatari mediated cease-fire proposal. Israel, meanwhile, insisted the deal did not meet its core demands. The high-stakes diplomatic moves and military brinkmanship left a glimmer of hope alive — but only barely — for an accord that could bring at least a pause in the 7-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli 401st Brigade entered the Rafah crossing early Tuesday morning, the Israeli military said, taking “operational control” of the crucial crossing. It’s the main route for aid entering the besieged enclave and exit for those able to flee into Egypt.
BEIRUT — Hamas has published a copy of the cease-fire and hostage release proposal that the militant group said it had agreed to on Monday.
The framework brought forward by Qatar and Egypt aims to bring a halt to seven months of war in Gaza. However, it's unclear if Israel will agree to the terms. The proposal outlines a phased release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza alongside the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the entire enclave and ending with a “sustainable calm” or “permanent cessation of military and hostile operations.”
Israel has previously said it would not agree to either a full withdrawal of its forces or a permanent cease-fire as part of a hostage release deal.
The first stage would last 42 days and would involve a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the release of about 33 hostages held in the territory, including the remaining Israeli women — both civilians and soldiers — as well as children, older adults and people who are ill.
Thirty Palestinian prisoners held in Israel would be released in exchange for each Israeli civilian hostage and 50 in exchange for each female soldier.
Palestinians displaced in Gaza would be allowed to return to their home neighborhoods during that time.
The parties would then negotiate the terms of the next stage, under which the remaining civilian men and soldiers would be released, while Israeli forces would withdraw from the rest of Gaza. This phase would be conditioned on achievement of a “sustainable calm.”
The final stage would involve exchange of the bodies of hostages who died in captivity and the beginning of a reconstruction plan for the enclave that would take place over three to five years “under the supervision of a number of countries and organizations, including: Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations.”
TEL AVIV, Israel — Thousands of Israelis rallied around the country Monday night calling for an immediate deal to release the hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.
The protests came as Israel’s War Cabinet voted to begin an operation on the city of Rafah, saying that a cease-fire proposal Hamas accepted earlier in the night was not in line with Israeli demands.
In Tel Aviv, about 1,000 protesters swelled near Israel’s military headquarters, some blocking the city’s main highway until late into the night. Police tried to clear the road, lifting some protesters off the street and extinguishing fires lit during the demonstration. Other officers on horseback surrounded crowds who chanted “deal now!”
In Jerusalem, hundreds of protesters called for a hostage deal. They marched toward the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, holding a banner reading “the blood is on your hands.”
There were also smaller protests in the cities of Haifa, Beersheba and Raanana.
Israeli police did not immediately respond to a request about the number of people arrested.
In front of Netanyahu’s house stood Mai Albini Peri, the grandson of Haim Peri, a hostage in Gaza. He held a sign that read, “Rafah, not at the expense of my grandfather.”
Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike on residential building in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike on residential building in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
A Palestinian wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip is brought to a hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
Israeli soldiers are seen near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Pro-Palestinian protestors stand on Massachusetts Avenue near a student encampment on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after a 2:30pm deadline passed to leave the encampment, Monday May 6, 2024, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Steve LeBlanc)
Pro-Palestinian protesters protest as Detroit Police look on during a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris in Detroit, Monday, May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Israeli police disperse demonstrators blocking a highway during a protest calling on the government to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas to bring home hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, May 6, 2024. The protesters took to the streets after the government appeared to spurn a deal accepted by Hamas. Israel said it would continue negotiations. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on buildings near the separating wall between Egypt and Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramez Habboub)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on buildings near the separating wall between Egypt and Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramez Habboub)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike east of Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
