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Five Takeaways from the IEA’s 2024 Global Energy Review
What a year tells us about the path of the clean energy transition.
In uncertain times, it helps to take a breath and look at the data. One great reference point is the International Energy Agency (IEA), and this year’s Global Energy Review provided some striking insights on clean energy in 2024. In sum? The trends are positive, but there’s still a lot more to do.
Here are five big things that stood out from this year’s report. (Note: All charts by IEA unless otherwise noted).
1. Clean energy is increasingly dominating new electricity generation
In 2024, more than 80 percent of the world’s new additions to electricity generation came from zero-carbon sources — with more each from solar, wind, or hydro than any fossil fuel. That doesn’t include battery storage, but we installed as much last year as in the past 30 years combined.
2. Fossil fuels up, but oil’s share down
With surging energy demand, fossil fuels did grow slightly. But oil’s share of total energy is at its lowest ever, thanks to declining demand from road transport after global EV sales grew another 26 percent last year.
3. China’s lop-sided impact
China is a huge contributor to clean energy growth, even while it continues to use polluting fuels. In 2024, China accounted for nearly two-thirds of new renewables generation, nearly two-thirds of EV sales, and a record 58 percent of global coal use. The fate of progress rests on China’s actions, along with the emerging economies that are growing fast behind it.
4. Emissions are up, slightly
CO2 emissions rose 0.8 percent in 2024, and the effects of past emissions were a major factor — with extreme heat and weather driving half of the emissions growth (due to higher cooling demand and lower wind output). Another one-third may have been from 2024 having a leap year; an extra day of emissions. We won’t see that this year, but we may see more climate chaos — making clean, resilient solutions more important than ever.
5. What gets missed
Finally, it’s worth mentioning what missed the spotlight. Beyond batteries and non-CO2 super pollutants, another is energy efficiency — which has helped avoid as much recent emissions as renewables, but is trending in the wrong direction. RMI is hard at work to uplift efficiency as a leading solution in the energy transition. To learn more about the system-wide efficiency opportunity, check out a compilation of RMI’s efficiency work.
