I don't think it makes a lot of sense that COVID would have caused some kind of climate revolution. If anything, it made in-person physical work — necessary to build sustainable infrastructure — more difficult.
As it stands, global PV installed capacity has been growing by a pretty constant 20% per annum for the last five years, about half of which is in China and Europe but with similar exponential rates in other countries (Brazil in particular has doubled its installed capacity in less than three years). At that rate, depending on the capacity factor, it would produce the majority of the world's electricity in 15-20 years. Storage is behind, but faces a chicken-and-egg problem: if you don't have installed PV capacity, there's no demand to build storage.
My point is: 20% YoY growth is fast by the standards of almost anything, let alone durable infrastructure. Rome wasn't built in a day. Part of the challenge is to make sure we keep it up.
The COVID effect was mostly one of trend accelerations: more people using online services for everything, delivery for everything. It produced a shock that is currently changing our infrastructure patterns.
We learned relatively quickly that although the streets cleared out, our energy use stayed roughly similar overall, and the supply shocks are tied to that story by shifting demand for goods and services in a relatively short period.
Back-to-office is also part of that because one of the goods and services that could not move that quickly is real estate: individuals could move, but businesses had leases. And everyone looking at the commercial real estate market has been shaking their heads and seeing a negative trend: yes, companies did mobilize to get people back on their office commute, but the market is still sliding and cities are looking at the difficult prospect of converting commercial buildings to housing now.
As it stands, global PV installed capacity has been growing by a pretty constant 20% per annum for the last five years, about half of which is in China and Europe but with similar exponential rates in other countries (Brazil in particular has doubled its installed capacity in less than three years). At that rate, depending on the capacity factor, it would produce the majority of the world's electricity in 15-20 years. Storage is behind, but faces a chicken-and-egg problem: if you don't have installed PV capacity, there's no demand to build storage.
My point is: 20% YoY growth is fast by the standards of almost anything, let alone durable infrastructure. Rome wasn't built in a day. Part of the challenge is to make sure we keep it up.