There is so much bad news about the state of Earth’s climate that sometimes it’s important to focus on the good. And, while the news of record-breaking temperatures and extreme weather from around the world certainly is devastating, it’s also true there are real encouraging trends. Not many years ago, almost no country with a large pollution footprint had anything resembling a credible plan to ratchet down carbon emissions. Yet, today–for the first time–it’s possible to say almost every major economy seems to be zeroing in on an inflection point where the growth of renewables and decline in carbon pollution will be unstoppable.

Below is a breif summary of what’s happening in the world’s major economies to indicate they’ve turned a real corner in the fight against climate change. The caveat–and there’s always a caveat–is that change still isn’t happening fast enough. However, if the trends below continue and accelerate, we might just have a shot at avoiding the most perilous climate change scenarios:

The United States. Perhaps the most significant climate policy development anywhere in the world from the last few years was the passage of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, with its massive investments in clean technologies. The IRA doesn’t mean the fight for climate action in the US is over–it doesn’t go far enough, and effective implementation of the law remains a key challenge. However, it represents the first really comprehensive climate plan to be enacted into law in this country. Here’s a recent summary from the New York Times of some of the ways the IRA is having its intended effect, and other areas where more work needs to be done.

Europe. While the IRA has begun to spark a clean technology revolution in the US, over in Europe the response to the Russia-Ukraine War has spurred a raft of new policies an initiatives to shift away from fossil fuels. In the early days of the war, there was widespread concern that in their eagerness to slash dependence on Russian oil and gas, European countries would re-embrace coal while sacrificing climate goals. However, while this may have happened to a limited extent in the short term, the overall impact of the scramble to ditch reliance on Russian fossil fuels has been an acceleration of clean energy deployment. Partly as a result, the EU’s carbon emissions declined by 8% last year alone, reaching a 60-year low. Read more in this Guardian story.

Japan. Despite having a world-class public transit system, Japan has been relatively slow to embrace the transition to a clean energy future. While coal consumption plummeted in the US and Europe over the last decade, Japan seemed largely stuck in its dependence on the dirty fossil fuel. However, that seems to be changing. Japan’s Green Transformation, officially unveiled in late 2022, is meant to trigger a wholesale shift away from fossil fuels. While there are some concerns about the plan, including that it may be over-reliant on unproven technologies like green hydrogen, it appears the fifth-largest economy in the world is now serious about curbing carbon emissions.

Korea. Like in neighboring Japan, renewable energy deployment in South Korea has for years fallen short of the country’s potential. However, Korea is now moving forward on a Green New Deal that seems to provide a real chance for changing the direction of its energy policy. Again, implementation will be key, but there’s reason to think the country is better positioned to scale up renewables than it has ever been before.

Canada. In 2023, Canada passed what is probably its most important climate policy yet, a package of clean energy tax incentives modeled after the IRA in the US. At the time, Canadian lawmaker explicitly stated their aim was to remain competitive in the global clean energy market at a time when their southern neighbor was taking unprecedented action to scale up green technologies. Canada, which is also a major oil producer, still has a long way to go before it can count itself a true climate leader. However, it is now in a place to play a major role in the global shift to renewables.

Australia. As a major coal producer and exporter, Australia has long lagged behind other developed countries when it comes to climate policy. However, last year the country passed a major climate bill designed to make major polluters across its economy reduce emissions. The law was passed within weeks of Canada’s new clean energy incentives, and the timing makes it also seem like at least partly a response to the US IRA.

China. More than any other country, China holds the fate of the Earth’s climate in its hands. Today it is far and away the largest carbon polluter of any country, and there’s really no way to avert catastrophic climate change without having China play a key role. Fortunately, after years of growing fossil fuel consumption and attendant carbon emissions, a convergence of factors have led to a situation where China’s emissions are forecast to actually go down this year. Even better, it seems possible that China’s emissions peaked last year and could now be entering a period of structural decline.

Unlike with most of the other countries on this list, China’s turning of a corner on climate is not due to any one policy–or even a suite of policies–so much as it’s because of a combination of political and economic factors. Chief among these are a rapid buildout of renewables over the last few years and an overall slowing down of China’s economic growth. This has created a situation where the growth in renewables should outpace increased demand for energy. If this trend continues and accelerates, China could become a major driver of a worldwide decline in carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

The upshot. A couple of major economies–most notably Russia and India–are missing from the list above. However, while India may not have turned the corner on the energy transition just yet, it is phasing out plans for new coal, and it is just a matter of time before the country’s carbon emissions begin to decline. Russia has no credible plan to drastically reduce emissions; however, while this is infuriating at a time of worsening extreme weather, the country isn’t a big enough polluter to sink global efforts to combat climate change on its own.

Meanwhile, as shown above, almost every other major economy seems to be taking serious steps in the right direction. This isn’t a reason to have complacency; in every country and bloc of countries on this list, formidable obstacles to lasting climate action remain. It’s also possible that changes in political leadership could derail efforts to embrace renewables, particularly in the United States. However, for now the world appears to be aligned toward the goal of reducing dependence on fossil fuels in a way that has never happened before. That should give us at least some cause for hope.