Fossil fuel use in creating energy will fall this year as a "turning point" is reached for the switch to renewables.

Ember’s Global Electricity Review 2023 notes that wind and solar reached a record 12 per cent of global electricity in 2022, and that power sector emissions may have peaked. As soon as 2023, wind and solar could push the world into a “new era” of falling fossil generation, and falling power sector emissions.

As the global electricity sector is the first sector that needs to be decarbonised, with the IEA Net Zero Emissions scenario pointing to a 2040 net zero power sector; ten years ahead of a net zero economy in 2050. Tracking the electricity transition, therefore, is critical to assess our climate progress.

The report analyses electricity data from 78 countries representing 93 per cent of global electricity demand and includes estimated changes in the remaining generation.


Over sixty countries now generate more than 10 per cent of their electricity from wind and solar. However, other sources of clean electricity dropped for the first time since 2011 due to a fall in nuclear output and fewer new nuclear and hydro plants coming online.

None-the-less, wind and solar are slowing the rise in power sector emissions. If all the electricity from wind and solar instead came from fossil generation, power sector emissions would have been 20 per cent higher in 2022. The growth alone in wind and solar generation met 80 per cent of global electricity demand growth in 2022.

Clean power growth is likely to exceed electricity demand growth in 2023; this would be the first year for this to happen outside of a recession. With average growth in electricity demand and clean power, Ember forecast that 2023 will see a small fall in fossil generation, with bigger falls in subsequent years as wind and solar grow further. That would mean 2022 hit “peak” emissions. A new era of falling power sector emissions is close.

Ember conclude that 2022 will be remembered as a turning point in the world’s transition to clean power, in part driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Małgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, senior electricity analyst, Ember, summed the data up: "In this decisive decade for the climate, it is the beginning of the end of the fossil age. We are entering the clean power era. The stage is set for wind and solar to achieve a meteoric rise to the top. Clean electricity will reshape the global economy, from transport to industry and beyond. A new era of falling fossil emissions means the coal power phasedown will happen, and the end of gas power growth is now within sight. Change is coming fast. However, it all depends on the actions taken now by governments, businesses and citizens to put the world on a pathway to clean power by 2040."

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