This is the world’s energy in 2025. Fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) are still the biggest slice, at about 86.2%.

\[ \text{Share} = \frac{\text{Fossil Fuel Energy}}{\text{Total Energy}} \times 100 \]

Example: if fossil fuels give 80 out of 100 units of energy:

\[ \frac{80}{100} \times 100 = 80\% \]

Share tells us how big the slice is. Total energy tells us how big the whole pizza is. The share can go down even if we still use more fossil fuels, as long as total energy grows faster.

The share went from 90.3% in 1990 to 86.2% in 2025. That’s a small drop.

\[ \hat{y} = b_0 + b_1 x \]

• \(x\) = the year
• \(\hat{y}\) = the share we predict
• \(b_1\) = how much the share changes each year

If \(b_1\) is negative, the share is going down.

model <- lm(fossil_fuels_energy_share_pct ~ year, data = world)
round(coef(model), 3)

## (Intercept)        year 
##     229.377      -0.070

The share drops about 0.07 points each year. The p-value is 1.01^{-7}, so the drop is a real trend, not a fluke. It is just a slow one.

Hover over the lines. Fossil fuels went from 8.3071^{4} to 1.43806^{5} TWh.

• The fossil fuel share is going down, but only by about 4 points in 35 years.
• The total amount of fossil fuels we use is still going up.
• Renewables are growing, but they are mostly adding to our energy, not replacing fossil fuels yet.

So are we moving away from fossil fuels? Slowly, yes. But we aren’t there yet.

Limits: This is a straight-line model, and it only shows what happened, not why. It also covers all energy, not just electricity.

Source: Our World in Data, Energy dataset