The Green "Revolution"

Is largely a myth, at least so far

The Statistical Review of World Energy (2025) is available, and when we talk about the green “revolution” and global warming, the only data that really matters is global data. What one particular country does is largely irrelevant. Let’s go to the data.

Figure 1 is the total world exojoules (EJ) of wind and solar energy consumption. One can look at this, think the trend seems exponential (“great, amazing”), and use that to declare that the green revolution is on its way. This is the type of graph activists will point to (the other is to look at just electricity), but you should be thinking of the data rule: Normalize properly; ask, “Per what?”

Figure 1: Data from the Statistical Review of World Energy

The “per what” here is relative to total world energy consumption. Figure 2 represents the percentage of total energy provided by wind and solar. The contribution of wind energy is just above 1.5% of total energy consumption, while the contribution of solar energy is just above 1.25%. In other words, wind and solar combined don’t account for even 3% of total world energy. The revolution isn’t here yet.

Figure 2: Data from the Statistical Review of World Energy

Ok, you might be thinking, but surely the wealthier nations are doing better. It turns out that the Statistical Review of World Energy separates the data into OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) nations and non-OECD. Figure 3 is the percent of solar and wind for OECD nations. Combined, solar and wind are 3.5% of total energy consumption. Better, but not by much.

Figure 3: Data from the Statistical Review of World Energy

In the end, solar and wind are still a long way from playing a meaningful role in total energy. Expect more warming. I’m not saying stop and give up on solar and wind, but be realistic about expectations and put some effort toward adaptation to warming.

I’ll end with one more graph that surprised me. We hear a lot about solar and wind, but it turns out that from the perspective of renewables, hydro has done more to reduce CO₂ over the last few decades than solar and wind. Figure 4 combines wind and solar and compares that to hydro as a percent of total energy. In 2024, the combined energy output of wind and solar surpassed that of hydro for the first time.

Figure 4: Data from the Statistical Review of World Energy

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Bio

I am a tenured mathematics professor at Ithaca College (PhD in Math: Stochastic Processes, MS in Applied Statistics, MS in Math, BS in Math, BS in Exercise Science), and I consider myself an accidental academic (opinions are my own). I'm a gardener, drummer, rower, runner, inline skater, 46er, and R user. I’ve written the textbooks “R for College Mathematics and Statistics” and “Applied Calculus with R.” I welcome any collaborations, and I’m open to job offers.