Ferry is the director of energy storage and systems at the UC San Diego Center for Energy Research. He lives in Carmel Valley.

Having just returned from a week at the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, I feel fortunate to have witnessed a bit of history. But as an academic researcher in sustainable energy, I also know that history is being made every day outside those conference halls.

Two years ago, Forbes published an article that stated the world would need to build a new nuclear power plant every day, day in and day out, for the next 30 years in order to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The author was correct, and his point is an important one: Promises like those being made in Glasgow are easy, but actually building things at the necessary scale of change is hard.

Thankfully, a lot can happen in two years.

Today the world is in fact building a nuclear power plant’s worth of zero-carbon energy resources every day, but they’re not nuclear power plants. Instead, the world is building the equivalent of a nuclear plant of wind, solar and storage every day, day in and day out — 700 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar and another 700 MW of battery storage. And by 2030, or sooner, the world will be building five nuclear plants’ worth of wind, solar and storage every day.

Having achieved this incredible feat is astounding, and the sheer scope is surprising if not shocking. Here in California, over 1.2 million rooftops now have solar panels, but even more power is generated by the state’s large-scale solar facilities which generate enough energy daily to theoretically fuel 11 million electric cars. Yes, there are only 1 million electric vehicles in California today, but that number is growing fast.

On Nov. 2, California’s fleet of storage batteries powered 4 percent of the entire state’s electricity grid and for the first time provided more power than its two remaining nuclear reactors. Moreover, the batteries achieved this feat at 6:25 p.m. using predominantly stored solar power just as the sun was beginning to set over the Golden State.

Significant agreements were reached in Glasgow over the past two weeks: agreements to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent in key industries and nations within 10 years, promises by over 40 countries to more quickly phase out the use of coal, pledges to address the pressing issue of deforestation, and perhaps most importantly, a joint announcement by the world’s largest carbon emitters, the U.S. and China, to accelerate their commitments to the reduction targets set forth in the Paris Accords. During the conference, I watched first hand as delegates from around the world reaffirmed commitments to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 — a goal specified six years ago as necessary to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius or less.

Given the pace of the wind, solar and storage buildout across the globe, the world could well achieve that target of zero-carbon emissions by 2050, but it won’t necessarily meet the goal of keeping enough carbon out of the atmosphere to limit warming to 2 degrees or less. Why? Because the road to 2050 matters more than the destination.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector are roughly 33 billion tons annually, about 80 percent of total CO2 emissions. The world is currently on track to reduce this amount by only a few percent this decade, followed by less than 20 percent between 2030 and 2040. This means that the remaining bulk would need to be cut sometime in the 2040s. If the world indeed waits 20 years to begin reducing the majority of its carbon emissions from the energy sector, then limiting warming to 2 degrees or less will be out of reach.

But progress outside the Glasgow negotiations shows the path forward. Wind and solar prices have dropped so dramatically over the past decade — 70 percent to 90 percent reductions — that they are now the cheapest sources of new energy across most of the planet. Battery prices have done the same, thanks to massive investments in manufacturing capacity and unprecedented advances in battery science and engineering.

Between now and 2030, the world can produce and install enough wind, solar and batteries to chart a course for 2 degrees warming or less, but it requires accelerating our already astonishing pace of development. In 2020 the world installed 230,000 MW of wind and solar. In 2023 we will need to install 460,000 MW, and by 2030 reach a target of 10 terawatts (TW), equivalent to 10 million megawatts, of cumulative installed capacity.

Ten TW of zero-carbon generation within the next decade can be achieved. By reaching that goal, we will meet the challenge of the climate crisis not by negotiated agreements to reduce but instead by the aggressive will to build.

The 30,000 or so delegates within the conference halls of Glasgow have concluded their discussions. How history will ultimately judge those negotiations is unknown , but within the global energy sector, and certainly for the next 10 years, you could say we have everything we need. We just need more of it.