Go solar, go vegan and still collapse

The end of June is usually an exciting time for me. Summer holidays approaching? No, it’s when the Energy Institute publishes its annual Statistical Review of World Energy. Who doesn’t love a big fat spreadsheet landing in their downloads folder to analyse to their heart’s content? The answer to that, of course, is a good many. And, in the case of the EI energy data, I have to confess I’m on a path to joining them, because I’ve found my excitement diminishing.

The main reason is because the figures tell the same darned story year after year. Despite endless talk about the purported ‘transition’ out of fossil fuels into low-carbon forms of energy, this resolutely fails to happen. Last year was no exception – the new data show that more oil, more natural gas and more coal were burned globally in 2024 than ever before in human history. Seriously, we need to stop talking about this mythical ‘transition’.

True, there was a big proportionate increase in solar and wind consumption once again – up 16 percent from 14.4 to 16.8 exajoules globally. But in absolute terms fossil fuel use increased more – up 7.6 exajoules from 505.1 to 512.7 exajoules globally. In most countries, fossil energy use dwarfs lower carbon forms of energy consumption. To reduce fossil fuel use to zero by 2050, we’d have to swipe out nearly 20 exajoules of fossil fuel each and every year between now and then – more than the entire global consumption of solar and wind energy, and more energy than is used in total by the world’s fifth highest energy-using country, Japan (figures calculated by me from the EI data).

This just isn’t going to happen – and it’s not because fossil energy companies are disgracefully dragging their feet over leaving the fossils in the ground, although that’s certainly true. For reasons much discussed on this site in the past (for example, here), the existing global economy is fatally dependent on fossils. This can’t go on indefinitely, but it’s not going to change through some smooth replacement of unsustainable energy sources with sustainable ones. If we were talking seriously about using renewables as a bridging technology to transition to lower-energy, more local lifeways, I might be able to get behind the concept of ‘transition’. But we’re not. Prepare for a bumpy ride.

There’s a lot more that could be said ...