Renewable Capacity Shortfall of 0.9 TW and Carbon Removal Gap Threaten 2030 Climate Goals

New data from Climate Week NYC reveals a stark mismatch between renewable energy deployment and what is needed to meet 2030 targets. Global clean power capacity is on track to reach 10.3 TW by 2030, falling 0.9 TW short of the 11 TW goal, even after a record 692 GW added in 2025. The bottleneck is not just building more solar and wind farms, but connecting them to the grid. Over 1,500 GW of projects are stuck in interconnection queues, and corporate buyers in major markets like China and India struggle to secure renewable power contracts due to regulatory barriers. On carbon removal, the picture is even more uneven. Conventional forestry accounts for most of the 2.2 billion tons removed annually, while novel methods like direct air capture and enhanced weathering contribute less than 0.1% of that total. Nation-level pledges leave a 1.2 billion ton annual shortfall by 2035, expanding to 5.2 billion tons by 2050. The report calls for targeted state procurement mandates and long-term offtake contracts to scale these technologies. The renewable deficit directly compounds the CDR problem, since engineered removal needs clean electricity to operate at scale.