The transition has started — but fossil fuels still rule

It is tempting to read record solar installations as a finished revolution. The fuller picture is more sobering: fossil fuels — oil, coal and gas — still provide about 80% of the world's primary energy, a share that has barely moved in a decade even as renewables have surged.

Why the shares move slowly

Electricity is only about a fifth of final energy. The rest — transport fuels, industrial heat, buildings — is much harder to electrify, and total energy demand keeps growing, so clean energy has been adding to the system rather than fully replacing fossil fuels.

Emissions have plateaued, not fallen

Global fossil CO₂ emissions reached a record 38.1 billion tonnes in 2025, though the rate of growth has slowed and the IEA expects fossil-fuel demand to peak this decade. Total emissions including land use are roughly flat — a plateau, not yet a decline.

Reading the number carefully

Beware of comparing energy statistics across methods: some accounting approaches put the fossil share nearer 87% because they count renewable electricity differently. On a like-for-like basis the fossil share is falling slowly, but absolute fossil use remains near record highs.

The transition is real and accelerating in the power sector, but the 80% figure is a reminder of how much of the energy system still runs on carbon — and how far there is to go.