At COP28, global leaders united under the ambitious ‘UAE Consensus’ to push ambition closer to the 1.5C climate target. Their headline commitment: transition away from fossil fuels.
This commentary looks to see where we are 12 months later, as this week G20 leaders reconfirmed their support for the agreements made in the COP28 global stocktake (albeit without explicitly mentioning a transition away from fossil fuels).
Gathering momentum towards a transition away from fossil fuels
There is growing evidence that the world is close to a global peak in power sector emissions.
Half of the world’s economies are already transitioning away from fossil fuels, and at least five years past a peak in power generation from fossil fuels, according to analysis by Ember.
Ember’s Global Electricity Review showed that clean electricity growth – led by solar and wind – has helped to slow the growth in fossil fuels in the power sector by almost two-thirds in the last ten years.
Coal in particular is declining fast in the richest countries. This year, the UK – the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution – closed its last coal power plant.
And it’s not just the UK: a third of the world’s richest nations are now coal-free. Coal consumption across OECD nations has halved since its peak in 2008. Almost all OECD countries are making good progress on phasing out coal power, replacing it predominantly with solar and wind. Three-quarters of OECD countries plan to be coal-free by 2030.
Perhaps even more importantly, China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, is on the brink of a new era as its CO2 emissions approach a peak. China’s CO2 emissions fell in Q2 and did not rise in Q3, indicating potential stabilisation in fossil fuel usage. That’s because renewable energy ballooned, even as electricity demand rose quickly. Last year, China installed about two-thirds of all the solar panels globally and about two-thirds of all the wind turbines installed globally.
With half the world now in a period of declining fossil fuels in the power sector – and China close to joining them – the world will soon enter a new era of falling fossil generation. But we’re not quite there yet.
2024 has been another record year for renewable electricity, but it hasn’t been enough to offset the large rise in energy demand. As a result, 2024 will likely see another record year of coal, oil and gas consumption. But the latest renewables trends mean the world is nearing a turning point – at least in the power sector – where fossil demand starts to decline.
Unlocking a global transition away from fossil fuels
At COP28 the world agreed to triple global renewables capacity and double the rate of efficiency improvements.
These two actions could deliver 85% of the cuts in unabated fossil fuels required by 2030, according to analysis by Ember of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Net Zero Roadmap.
Tripling renewables alone will halve coal power by 2030, according to the IEA, which we calculate would in turn deliver almost half of the cuts in coal mine methane needed this decade.
By 2035, renewables and efficiency could more than halve total CO2 emissions, unlocking a fossil fuel phaseout. Critical to efficiency improvements is the move to electric cars, heat pumps and efficient air conditioners – all of which can be powered with renewable electricity.
The outlook to 2030 remains unchanged one year on
The era of fossil growth is over, but current policies do not yet set the world on course for a rapid decline in fossil fuels. Indeed, under current policies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts fossil fuel demand in the power sector in 2030 to be just 2% below 2023 levels.
Whilst there was no timeline or ambition with which to “transition away from fossil fuels”, a 2% fall by 2030 is a world away from the 43% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions needed by 2030 to align with a 1.5C pathway.
There was little movement in the last year on projected fossil fuel use by 2030. The IEA forecast for renewable capacity in 2030 was upgraded once again from last year; however, projected energy use increased, leaving total projected fossil fuel use in 2030 unchanged, compared to forecasts made last year.
There has also been little action from governments on upgrading their renewables targets since the world agreed to triple global renewables capacity by 2030. In the last 12 months to October, just eight countries updated their renewables plans to 2030. Governments are two steps behind on the market: their national plans for both solar and battery substantially lag on industry forecasts. What’s more, stronger policies could push solar and battery installations even higher than current industry forecasts. And although industry forecasts put solar on track for what’s required for a global tripling of renewables, that is not the case for wind, where more policy support is needed.
Despite slow government action, the positive momentum of renewables deployment – particularly solar – led the IEA to narrow the projected gap to tripling to just 13%. However, the gap on efficiency is big and has grown further. Strong growth in energy demand in 2024 led the IEA to increase projected energy use through 2030. This means efficiency improvements to 2030 are projected to be less than projected a year ago. This is far from the doubling of energy efficiency improvements agreed at COP28, putting projected efficiency improvements to 2030 in line with what happened last decade.
The quality of the transition is arguably faring even less well than the speed. The sentence agreed at COP28 read “transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner”. The IEA defines “just” as meaning “emerging market clean energy investment outside of China”, which is projected to lag by two-thirds in 2030, “orderly” as “the ratio of fossil to clean energy investment”, which is three times too much in favour of fossil fuels, and “equitable” as “getting to 100% electricity access and clean cooking”, of which only a fifth of the gap is expected to be closed by 2030.
What needs to happen next
COP29 should build on COP28 to further supercharge renewables. COP29 is the finance COP and will hopefully unlock new investment for emerging markets. There is also a hat-trick of energy pledges – grids and storage targets will help add much-needed clean flexibility to integrate more solar and wind, green corridors will ensure strategic coordination to harness the full renewables potential of regions, and action on clean hydrogen should help renewables-based green hydrogen.
The storage target is achievable. 1 MW of storage needs to be built by 2030 for every 5 MW of renewables, and with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery prices falling 39% in the last 12 months, and ample battery manufacturing capacity, it is possible to see that this target is achievable. Building grids is a different challenge from deploying batteries, and because of these differences – especially the longer timescales to deployment – the case for strong policy is even more convincing than it is for batteries.
Grids and storage are two solutions to clean flexibility, which is needed to integrate renewables quickly, efficiently and securely. But there are more tools in the clean flexibility toolbox. Ember’s clean flexibility explainer shows how suppliers can become more flexible – ramping down coal, gas and sometimes renewable capacity as needed – and how dynamic pricing can help consumers benefit from cheaper electricity at times of renewables abundance.
The world is embracing renewables. Many countries are already showing successful models for rapid renewables deployment, supported by enhanced grids, locally-tailored flexibility solutions such as battery storage, and timely policy interventions. The progress we are seeing so far should stop fossil fuels rising further.
However, it does not – at least yet – mean a transition away from fossil fuels. A great focus will be needed on efficiency, unlocking barriers to renewables deployment, investing in clean flexibility and planning our move away from a fossil fuel economy.
Government policy needs to extend beyond just renewables, else the transition away from fossil fuels could be very slow indeed.
