Global renewable energy growth overstated by China’s dominance

Excluding China’s remarkable achievements, the actual growth in renewable energy capacity is far less impressive.

This disparity highlights a critical issue: the need for accelerated investment in low-carbon energy sources across regions outside China, particularly in Africa and Asia, which are lagging behind.

The myth of exponential growth can be dangerously misleading, fostering complacency and impeding the urgent efforts required to decarbonize our energy systems globally, Caliber.Az reports citing the foreign media.

The belief that the world is making significant progress in shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy is becoming more common. This view is often supported by charts depicting “exponential growth” in global renewable energy capacity and generation over recent years. While this perspective is reassuring, it is essential to temper it with a dose of reality. We are far from achieving success, and it’s time to stop pretending otherwise. Evaluating global renewable growth rates can be misleading, as the transition is not uniform but varies greatly by region. China's dominant role skews global statistics, obscuring the true state of progress.

The impressive global growth figures for renewable energy are largely due to China's contributions. In 2023, China alone was responsible for a remarkable 63 per cent of the world’s new renewable energy capacity, adding 298 gigawatts out of a total 473 gigawatts. More strikingly, China accounted for 96 per cent of the year-on-year increase in global renewable capacity. Without China’s substantial additions, the net global increase in renewable capacity for 2023 would have been just seven gigawatts more than in 2022. While the growth figures appear dramatic, they are far from "exponential" when China’s influence is excluded.
The critical issue is that we require accelerated growth in renewable energy investments globally, not just in China. When examining the energy transition regionally, the challenge becomes even more apparent. Africa and Asia (excluding China), which have the greatest need for low-carbon energy investments due to their fossil-fuel-intensive power sectors and anticipated increases in electricity consumption, are receiving only minimal investment in renewables. From 2018 to 2023, while global annual net additions of renewable capacity grew at a compound annual rate of 10 per cent, Africa saw only a five per cent increase, compared to 16 per cent in China. Progress is slowest precisely in the regions where it is most urgent. Consequently, despite decades of government efforts to support renewable investments, greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation—an area where decarbonization is both crucial and achievable—continue to rise. Challenging the notion of "exponential growth" is vital not only because it misrepresents the global situation by focusing on China's achievements but also because this misleading narrative carries significant political implications.

If our current strategies are supposedly achieving exponential growth, why would we consider changing our approach? Exponential growth suggests success, not failure. Indeed, the narrative of rapid expansion in renewables often fuels overly optimistic books and ideas that implicitly or explicitly support a status quo approach to the climate crisis. This narrative tends to reflect the situation in most of the world outside China, where the reality of "business as usual" is distinctly different. Rapid and widespread decarbonization of electricity generation is one of humanity’s most urgent tasks, especially since electrifying transportation, buildings, and industry is central to global warming mitigation strategies. However, policies and economies are driven by prevailing narratives. When these narratives misrepresent progress and avoid confronting difficult truths, they make the challenge of decarbonization even more daunting.