Reality Check: Renewables Surge, Yet Fossil Fuels Still Dominate

December 15, 2025

China is often praised as a renewable energy (RE) powerhouse, producing massive numbers of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and batteries for global markets. While this seems impressive, some experts argue that the image is misleading. The truth is, China’s energy use has surged, mixing “green” manufacturing with more coal, making the country rich but not a true renewable leader.

Although China provided 39% of the world’s $2 trillion spending on green energy last year, researchers say the country’s coal plant construction hit its highest level in nearly ten years last year, contradicting President Xi Jinping’s pledge to peak carbon emissions before 2030.

China’s RE growth is running alongside a massive expansion of coal power. In 2024, the country added a record 356 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar capacity, but also began constructing 94.5 GW of new coal plants—the highest level since 2015. Resuming previously suspended projects added another 3.3 GW, reinforcing coal’s role in China’s energy mix.

According to the report released by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM), this dual approach highlights a tension in China’s energy strategy. “The parallel expansion of coal and renewables risks undermining China’s clean energy transition,” it stated.

According to Copenhagen Consensus President Bjørn Lomborg, China’s green-energy surge masks serious economic and environmental challenges. The country has poured massive investment into solar panels, leading to overproduction, plunging profits, bankruptcies, and major layoffs across the industry. “Even running at a loss, this production depends on massive coal use: Every Chinese silicon smelter, an essential solar-panel material, requires its own coal-fired power station,” he writes.

China’s electric vehicle (EV) sector shows a similar pattern. Local governments back EV production, which now accounts for about one-tenth of China’s GDP. But overcapacity is extreme, with only a fraction of the 129 current EV and hybrid brands likely to survive by 2030. Lomborg claims that even though Chinese consumers buy most EVs globally, their production and charging are coal-intensive, producing almost as much carbon over a vehicle’s lifetime as gasoline cars.

(Also read: Challenging COP30 Priorities: People Come Before Carbon)

Global trend: Fossil fuels still dominate

China’s energy landscape mirrors a global pattern: while renewable sources like wind, solar, and hydro have surged in recent years, fossil fuels remain dominant. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), they still supply more than 80% of the world’s energy.

The US ranks second in global greenhouse gas emissions, trailing only China. For decades, environmental advocates have pushed to move the country away from fossil fuels. Yet, despite policy efforts and trillions in public and private investment, RE supplied just over 20% of US electricity and only 9% of total energy in 2023.

Meanwhile, Lomborg points out that expanding RE often does little to cut fossil fuel use. Numerous studies indicate that much of the new green power simply meets growing demand rather than replacing coal, oil, or gas. “Recent research shows that for every six units of new green energy, less than one unit displaces any fossil fuel,” he writes. In the U.S., analysis suggests that subsidies for renewables frequently drive higher overall energy consumption, meaning policies designed to lower emissions can, paradoxically, increase them.

He also states that the prevailing green strategy assumes that heavily subsidized renewables will automatically displace fossil fuels. Yet a recent study calls this notion “misleading.” Lomborg explains, “During every previous addition of a new energy source, the researchers found, it has been ‘entirely unprecedented for these additions to cause a sustained decline in the use of established energy sources.’”

Additionally, solar and wind mainly serve electricity, which represents just 20% of global energy use. Major sectors such as transport, heating, manufacturing, and agriculture remain largely dependent on fossil fuels, while crucial industries like steel, cement, plastics, and fertilizer have few viable green alternatives.

Climate action is not cheap

According to the research and policy organization Transnational Institute (TNI), a common assumption is that the cost of renewables will dictate the pace of the energy transition. This suggests that as RE technologies become cheaper, they will eventually outcompete fossil fuels, triggering a rapid shift. In this view, government subsidies and research investments are simply meant to accelerate progress until that tipping point is reached.

“In the EU, falling renewables costs do not necessarily translate to cheaper wholesale electricity prices, which are still set by fossil fuels,” noted TNI. It explained that the EU’s wholesale electricity prices do not directly reflect the cost of generation. The market uses a “marginal pricing” system, where all generators are paid the same rate, set by the most expensive source running at that moment. As a result, even as renewables become cheaper, fossil fuel costs continue to largely determine wholesale prices.

Former UK minister Boris Johnson has acknowledged that his government advanced the country’s net-zero plans more rapidly than was practical. Although he once championed bold emissions targets and accelerated RE adoption, he now says those ambitions moved faster than what even environmental advocates viewed as achievable.

Johnson reflected that he became overly confident in the idea that renewables could quickly take the place of fossil fuels, a belief he now links to higher energy costs that, in his view, are being shouldered by ordinary consumers.

The IEA warns that the hidden costs of relying heavily on wind and solar grow quickly as their share of generation rises. Once these sources supply around a quarter of total output, the need to manage their variability pushes up the overall cost of installed capacity by an extra 10 to 15%. Beyond that threshold, the added expenses only climb higher, making each new tranche of renewables more expensive to integrate than the last.

Though Lomborg concedes that climate change is a serious challenge, he highlights that “climate solutions also come with their own set of costs, often demanding that businesses and individuals rely on pricier, less dependable energy sources.” He adds, “McKinsey estimates the direct price tag to achieve a real transition at more than $5 trillion annually. This splurge would slow economic growth, making the real cost five times higher.”

(Also read: Mount Banahaw Wind Project Sparks Strong Local Backlash)

The bottom line: Growth is essential for developing economies

Are countries willing to gamble on the intermittency of renewables, especially after Spain, one of Europe’s most solar-reliant countries, experienced a major blackout that exposed the risks of depending too heavily on weather-driven power?

Ryan York of the Independent Institute notes that people expect electricity to work instantly, every single time. “Consumers expect that when they flip a switch, the lights will come on every time. In terms of energy policy, we talk about this expectation as the ‘necessity of reliability.’” He explains, “Fossil fuels are more reliable because they can produce energy day and night when the wind is howling and when it’s calm, when the river’s waters are rushing toward their destination, and during long dry spells when it barely flows.”

China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, producing about 30% of global emissions. Despite global growth in RE, China remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

In contrast, small economies contribute only a tiny fraction of global emissions — the Philippines, for example, accounts for just 0.5%. With such a limited share, even the most costly and aggressive RE transitions will not create a meaningful change in the planet’s climate trajectory.

This leads to a difficult but necessary point. A net zero Philippines will not save the country or save the planet, regardless of what some climate activists claim. The numbers do not support that promise. TThis means that even if the Philippines were to shut down every factory, retire all fossil-fuel plants and shift completely to renewables, the global climate system would barely register any difference.

Real progress in lowering global emissions depends on the actions of the world’s largest emitters. Decisions made in China, the US and other major economies will determine the direction of the global climate. For smaller economies, the more urgent priority is securing reliable and affordable energy that supports jobs, industry and national development, rather than pursuing symbolic climate targets that cannot alter global outcomes on their own.

Echoing this perspective, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates emphasized that improving lives should take precedence over emissions targets. Noting that the world’s poorest remain most vulnerable to climate change, he argued that “the biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been.”

TNI argues that the focus should shift from cheap renewables to cutting global energy demand. “Currently, wealthy consumers use far more energy than they need while others do without, struggling with energy poverty and lacking access to reliable power connections.” It suggests energy decommodification to address this issue, “substantially reducing global energy consumption in ways that ensure equity in the process.’

Additionally, Lomborg contends that it is misguided to require all nations to follow the net-zero path. “It is hypocritical and ultimately immoral to insist that poorer countries rely on intermittent solar and wind when every single rich country has access to a vast amount of affordable, dependable energy, mostly from fossil fuels,” he declares.

Sources:

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/chinas-green-energy-revolution-is-powered-by-coal-8af17c4a

https://www.ft.com/content/4658e336-930f-49db-abc9-0036ee0ea777

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/promise-and-pitfalls-clean-energy-transition

https://opinion.inquirer.net/175935/myth-of-green-energy-transition

https://www.tni.org/en/article/energy-transition-mythbusters-myth-3

https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/rising-gas-costs-drive-up-gb-electricity-prices

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/10/05/boris-johnson-too-far-too-fast-net-zero

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/09/30/britain-paying-highest-electricity-prices-in-the-world-as-net-zero-costs-rise

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/the-uks-journey-to-a-coal-power-phase-out