Why increasing renewable energy alone can't solve climate crisis

Indian Express

3 days ago

The world added about 582 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity in 2024, representing an increase of 15% over the previous year, according to a new report by the International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA). This was the largest annual increase in renewable energy capacity in any single year.
Currently, the installed capacity of renewable energy across the globe stands at more than 4,442 GW, and around 30% of the world's electricity is produced from renewable sources.
The new report by IRENA, which was released on July 10, also said that at the current rate of growth, the world would come close to achieving its target of tripling renewable energy installed capacity by 2030. This target is considered crucial for limiting global warming and was part of the agreement made at the COP28 meeting in Dubai in 2023.
The rapid growth of renewable energy might give the impression that the world has made good progress on meeting its climate objectives. However, renewable energy has not even begun to replace fossil fuels at the global level.
As of now, it is catering mainly to the rising electricity demand, which has increased three times since 1990 and is projected to grow even higher.
While only around 10% of new electricity installed capacity in 2024 was fossil fuel-based, the use of fossil fuels, in absolute terms, is still growing, according to the IRENA report.
Between 2012 and 2023, global electricity generation grew by 2.5% every year on average, and renewable energy expanded at a rate of about 6% during the same time. This has led to a steady rise in the share of renewables in the electricity generation mix. However, fossil fuels currently account for more than 70% of global electricity production.
In absolute terms, more fossil fuels are being burned today than 10 years ago to produce electricity. To make matters worse, the increase in the use of fossil fuels is expected to continue for at least a few more years. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions have reached record highs in recent years.
Moreover, electricity is still only a small slice of total energy use. Just 20% to 22% of the total energy consumed in the world every year is in the form of electricity. Only 30% of electricity generation comes from renewable sources. This means that about 6% of the world's energy consumption comes from clean sources. More than 90% still comes from fossil sources.
Note that there are some countries, mainly in the Nordic region, where renewables account for a significantly higher share of total energy consumption. However, the special conditions existing in these countries are difficult to replicate elsewhere. According to projections, by 2050, even in the case scenarios, not more than 40% to 45% of the world's total energy consumption would come from clean sources.
This means that energy transition, which involves moving away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy, on its own, is unlikely to help tackle the climate crisis. That is why carbon removal interventions, which are yet to become viable, assume great importance in the fight against global warming.
Regional imbalance in growth of renewables
There are other concerns with the manner in which the global energy transition is currently taking shape. So far, the bulk of renewable energy deployment has taken place in a handful of countries, while the others have been left behind.
The IRENA report pointed out that while renewable capacity increased by 15% globally in 2024, in Africa it grew by just 7%, and that too from a very low base. Africa is where the largest number of people without access live.
The IRENA report said 71% of the renewable capacity addition last year took place in Asia. This is slightly misleading as China alone accounted for more than 62% of global additions — that is, 364 GW of the 582 GW installed globally. The whole of Africa together got less than 1%.
For the last few years, China has been consistently installing more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined. Apart from developed countries, China, and some large players such as India, the renewable energy footprint has not grown at a fast pace.
It is true that these are the countries that also happen to be the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. Effective energy transition here would be more consequential from the climate change perspective than in, for example, Africa.
However, this kind of lopsided deployment of renewable energy, coupled with the fact that China has a near monopoly on the production and supply chains of most of the renewable systems, could leave many countries and regions behind once again.
Renewable energy, such as solar and wind, might be available universally — unlike, say, petrol that is found in only limited geographies — but the technologies needed to harness this energy are getting increasingly inaccessible.
China dominates the production and manufacturing of solar PV systems, for example, but also consumes more than half of it. Large buyers such as the United States and India corner most of what is exported. There is little supply for others.
Also, manufacturing outside of China, which could have filled the gap, is struggling. This is because other countries are not able to compete with China's economies of scale, low labour costs, or state subsidies.
China's control over the renewable energy system has begun to appear similar to the OPEC countries' hold over global oil supplies. Energy security has emerged as one of the foremost concerns of countries, pushing many of them to secure whatever option is available to them, irrespective of whether it is clean or not.
The transition to clean and renewable energy systems is not as simple as it is sometimes made out to be. There are several layers of complexity which make the goal of curbing global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius look increasingly unrealistic to achieve.