Conservative lobby group wrong about share of renewables in global energy mix

^{By Eiddwen Jeffery}

Conservative lobby group Advance Australia has misrepresented figures from Our World in Data relating to fossil fuels in global energy consumption and the contribution made by renewable energy sources.

Our World in Data is an online science website, funded by reader donations, that presents research from a global community of scholars. 

In an image posted to Facebook, Advance Australia says, “Despite TRILLION$ in investment, renewables' share of global energy mix is just over 3%". 

The post then says, "The vast majority of global energy still comes from coal, oil and gas (86.1%) - down just 1.8% from 84.3% since 2000" [sic].

It also lists energy sources and the share of the energy mix that they account for: “Solar accounts for 1.1%, wind 2.2%, biofuels 0.7%, hydro 6.4%, nuclear 4.3% and other renewables 0.9%”.

Advance Australia’s post attributes all the data to a research article by Our World in Data (OWID). But Advance Australia’s claims and the figures it quotes, are incorrect, according to OWID researcher and co-author of the article, Dr Hannah Ritchie. 

The OWID article, titled Energy Mix, tracks the amount of renewable and non-renewable energy sources used to meet global energy needs. The website provides an overview of global energy data going back to 1965. 

Advance Australia’s post begins with the claim renewables’ share of global energy is “just over 3 per cent”. However, the post does not say to which data set or specific energy sources this figure refers. 

Dr Ritchie told RMIT FactLab in an email, “It is not correct that renewables account for 3% of the global energy mix.”

She said the latest figures available from the OWID research show renewables’ share of global energy was 13.47 per cent in 2021. This total includes renewable energy from hydropower, wind, solar, bioenergy, geothermal and wave and tidal.

This total does not include traditional biomass, which is another source of renewable energy often used in low-income countries, she said.

In the post, Advance Australia also claims that coal, oil and gas account for “86.1%” of global energy and this is “down just 1.8% from 84.3% since 2000" [sic].

Again, the group does not include a time period for this claim, making it impossible to check the purported reduction of fossil fuels. 

Dr Ritchie told FactLab the OWID’s latest data shows reliance on coal, oil and gas for global energy decreased from 85.5 per cent in 2000 to 82.2 per cent in 2021 — equating to a 3.9% decline. 

In its post, Advance Australia lists energy sources and their share of global energy: “Solar accounts for 1.1%, wind 2.2%, biofuels 0.7%, hydro 6.4%, nuclear 4.3% and other renewables 0.9%”

But these figures are from the OWID data on 2019 global energy consumption.

The 2021 global energy mix is available through OWID’s Energy Data Explorer. This shows the following energy sources’ share of global energy as: solar 1.63 per cent, wind 2.95 per cent, hydro 6.76 per cent and nuclear 4.25 per cent. The data explorer does not provide a 2021 figure for smaller renewables or biofuel.