Energy transition is ‘alive and delivering benefits across world’ – report

The energy transition remains “very much alive” and is delivering benefits across the globe, a report has found.

As world leaders meet in Brazil ahead of the UN climate summit next week, the paper outlines how renewable energy has brought down costs, improved energy security and transformed local economies in every region of the world.

It comes as the first report from the Clean Power Action Taskforce, which was established earlier this year and is chaired by the UK’s former net zero tsar Chris Skidmore.

The report, which was released on Friday, seeks to celebrate the progress that has been made in the last decade to counter the growing political pushback against net zero ambitions.

Mr Skidmore wrote: “The energy transition remains very much alive and delivering for those who seek to receive its advantages.”

Addressing the recent breakdown in political consensus over global climate action, he added: “This opposition can be found not among the millions of households, or the thousands of communities that are already realising the benefits of the renewable revolution, but rather a small but vocal minority of populist politicians whose vested interests often speak louder than their words, in their attempts to maintain the status quo.”

According to the report, the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels, as solar and wind power are installed at record-breaking levels.

The paper explores 30 examples of how countries and communities have experienced both significant environmental and economic benefits from deploying renewable power at scale.

This includes figures showing more than 87% of Brazil’s electricity came from renewables in 2024, while Chile has gone from importing fossil fuels to generate 63% of its energy in 2013 to producing 68% from renewables last year.

Uruguay produces nearly 99% of its electricity from renewable sources, according to the paper, which describes the economic impact as “dramatic” as the cost of electricity production decreased by roughly half compared to fossil fuels.

It also cites progress made in Kenya, where renewable energy now represents 90% of its electricity input, up from 50% in 2000, and has helped boost the economy as well as significantly expand access to basic electricity supply.

It also explores how the UK’s transition to clean power demonstrates how a country can grow its economy – by more than 70% since 1990 – while at the same time reducing emissions by more than half and how Asia is now home to just over half of all global renewable generation capacity.

Other examples highlighted include India, where approximately 7% of schools in India have had solar panels installed on their rooftops in the last five years, and in China, where photovoltaic greenhouses combine solar panels with farming.

Initiatives for “zero bills” homes have been developed in the UK, New Zealand and Germany, where properties are retrofitted with a heat pump, battery and solar panels.

And innovations to use wasted heat from data centres to heat homes are being rolled out in countries such as Switzerland and Finland.

In the report, ambassador Patricia Espinosa, the former executive secretary of the UN climate agency and co-chair of the Clean Power Action Taskforce, said: “I am convinced that, despite the current pushback, international efforts will prevail. As collective action is the only viable solution to global challenges.”

She later added: “I believe there will be greater rewards for those who read the signs and deliver: change brings opportunities, both environmental and economic, for those countries, communities and companies that take action today, rather than wait until tomorrow.

“This report seeks to make the case for action: not merely for the deployment of clean power, but for the deployment of a mindset that recognises that we must make the case for the efficiency, the security, and the growth that renewables and clean power can provide.”