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This paper explores the role of electricity in the transition to renewable energy to mitigate climate change. A systematic literature review with the Scopus database identified 92 papers relevant to the renewable electricity transition. A PESTLE (Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, and Environmental) review of the papers provided a multidisciplinary analysis. The Paris Agreement created a global movement for carbon neutrality to address the threats of climate change, calling for a transition to renewable electricity to lead the way and expand into new sectors and regions. Although smaller renewable technologies are ramping up, complexities thwarting the transition include locked-in assets, high upfront costs, variability of solar and wind energy, infrastructure, difficulty in decarbonizing transportation and industry, material resource constraints, and fossil fuel support. This research found that renewables are not replacing fossil fuels to date but adding further energy demands, so that greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2021 despite an increased renewable electricity share. Without a major shift in the trillions of dollars of subsidies and investment away from fossil fuels to renewables, catastrophic climate change is predicted. This paper found that the Paris Agreement's commitment to net-zero carbon and the transition to renewable electricity are undermined by record-high levels of subsidies and financing for fossil fuel industry expansion. Transitioning to a climate-neutral economy requires an investment away from fossil fuels into renewable energy ecosystems. Renewable electricity provides possibilities to realize sustainable development goals, climate stabilization, job creation, a green economy, and energy security with careful planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schematic illustration of the double-layer PDRC coating. [Display omitted] • The idea of introducing masking layer for double-layer PDRC coating is proposed. • PDRC coating achieves high solar reflectivity (94.0%) at a thin thickness. • The PDRC coating reduces the indoor temperature of container room by 5.0 °C. • The prepared PDRC coating can realize large-scale long-time outdoor applications. The realization of spontaneous sub-ambient cooling in daytime typically requires the solar reflectance and thermal emittance of passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) material to be > 90%. Toward real-world applications, however, to achieve high optical performance and excellent durability, PDRC coating is often cost-prohibitive due to its high thickness (500 μm or higher). To solve the contradiction between high optical performance and thin thickness of PDRC coating, the idea of introducing masking layer for PDRC coating is proposed in this paper to prepare the water-based double-layer PDRC coating and explore its long-term outdoor application potential. The PDRC coating can achieve high solar reflectance (94.0%) and "atmospheric transparent spectrum window" emittance (93.0%), while the thickness and cost are only 40% and 60% of existing water-based PDRC coating. The PDRC coating shows efficient cooling performance when applied as the external coating of large temporary buildings, with maximum temperature reduction of 20.8 °C and 5.0 °C on the roof/indoor, which are equal to or greater than recorded values. The 150-day large-scale outdoor application shows that the coating has excellent durability, which offers a reference for the long-term outdoor application of PDRC coating. The application of the PDRC coating on rooftops of containers can achieve a cooling energy savings of up to 15.3% compared to conventional steel roofs, translating to an annual energy savings of 413.2 MJ and a reduction of approximately 114 kg in carbon dioxide emissions, which provide compelling evidence for the ability of PDRC coating to mitigate carbon emissions and address global climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]