While the UN’s claim is indeed good news for the climate and in some ways for consumers, there is much more to the picture that must be considered. UN chief Antonio Guterres, an anti-corporate socialist who often criticizes fossil fuel companies, is now saying that the age of fossil fuels is fading. While I admire Guterres’ humanitarian credentials, I find his politics impractical and not realistic. I have been strongly critical of the UN for overly encouraging “leapfrogging” to green energy in places like Africa that would benefit much more at a much lower cost with domestic fossil fuel development. The UN has also moved to restrict financing for fossil fuel projects in some of those countries with limited access to affordable and reliable energy.
The newly released UN report
‘Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2025’ shows some results that
globally, we have been sourcing more and more of our electricity from green
sources. The report utilized data from the World Bank, WHO, IEA, and IRENA.
Guterres hailed the news:
“Just follow the money,” Mr. Guterres said, noting that
$2 trillion flowed into clean energy last year, $800 billion more than fossil
fuels and up almost 70 per cent in a decade.”
There was more good news in the
report as detailed in the graphic below, which compares to 2015. More people
have access to electricity, cleaner cooking fuels, energy has become more
efficient as measured by energy intensity (primary energy/GDP), there is more
access to renewable energy for developing countries, and there are more
renewables on global grids, which now make up a slightly higher percentage of
the whole. Clean cooking fuels refer mainly to gas (LP gas or propane/butane),
replacing biomass and other fuels that emit toxic smoke that leads to deadly
indoor pollution, especially for women and children.
Electricity access is important and growing:
Energy access is growing in some countries:
Access to clean cooking fuels continues to grow, and deaths from indoor air pollution continue to drop.
However, it has also been recently
reported by Bloomberg from IEA data that global coal demand is expected to hit
a new record high in 2025, even though coal demand in China dropped a little.
“In the US, coal usage surged by 12% in the first half
of the year, driven by rising electricity needs, the IEA found. Demand also
rose in Europe, where wind production has been well below average so far this
year. India will likely see an increase of 1.3% for the year, helping to to
offset an expected 0.5% decline in China.”
“Overall, coal demand rose by 1.5% to a record 8.79
billion metric tons last year, the IEA said, up from a previous estimate of
8.77 billion tons.”
The demand is slightly higher than
originally predicted. However, they are expecting a decline in global coal
demand in 2026.
Another caveat to the UN report, or at least something that should be considered, is that hydropower
still makes up the biggest renewable electricity source, not wind or solar. The
UN is still considering biomass to be a renewable source. I do not think that
biomass should be included as renewable. It is certainly not clean, and it is
not renewable on the same timescale as it is consumed, since it takes a lot
longer to grow a tree than to burn a tree. As the next graphs show, the amount
of wind and solar is still small compared to hydropower, biofuels, and biomass.
The report notes the changes in the use of renewables for electricity
generation.
“The use of renewables-based electricity grew almost 8
percent from 2021 to 2022, and by 56 percent from 2015. As of 2022, almost 30
percent of all energy consumed to generate electricity was renewable—the
largest share among all end uses of renewables. Renewables-based electricity,
in turn, represented more than a third of global renewable energy consumption
and half of modern uses of renewable energy. Continuous new capacity
additions—mainly in wind and solar photovoltaics (PV), for which the combined generation
more than tripled in 2022 relative to 2015—is rapidly increasing renewables’
share in electricity. Hydropower remains the predominant source of
renewables-based electricity in the world, meeting 15 percent of global demand.”
The next graph below shows that,
as expected, it is developed countries that have been leading the increases in
renewables, but developing countries are also gaining at a slightly lower rate.
Among fossil fuels, natural gas
has had the most efficiency gains, or lowered energy intensity, over the past
25 years.
According to the report,
renewables are expected to overtake coal as the fastest-growing energy source
in 2025, even though coal is set for record global demand.
“Renewable energy is the fastest-growing energy source
today. Projections under today’s policies show that renewables are set to
surpass coal as the predominant electricity source globally in 2025.”
The graphs below show goals and
scenarios for renewables deployment and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). The third graph from IRENA, importantly, includes the share of variable
renewable energy (VRE), which for the most part is wind and solar.
Gutteres
went on to say:
“The
fossil fuel age is flailing and failing. We are in the dawn of a new energy era,
an era where cheap, clean, abundant energy powers a world rich in economic
opportunity.”
References:
UN
says booming solar, wind and other clean energy hit global tipping point for
even lower costs. Seth Borenstein. LA Times. July 22, 2025. UN
says booming solar, wind and other clean energy hit global tipping point for
even lower costs
Tracking
SDG7: The Energy Progress Report. 2025. sdg7-report2025-0620-v6-highres.pdf
UN’s
Guterres declares fossil fuel era fading; presses nations for new climate plans
before COP30 summit. UN News. Vibhu Mishra. July 22, 2025 UN’s Guterres declares
fossil fuel era fading; presses nations for new climate plans before COP30
summit | UN News
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