Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World

by Vaclav Smil

The first United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was held in 1992. In that year, fossil fuels (using the conversion of fuels and electricity to a common denominator favored by BP in its annual statistical report) provided 86.6 percent of the world’s primary energy. By 2017, they supplied 85.1 percent, a reduction of a mere 1.5 percent in 25 years. This key indicator of the global energy transition pace is perhaps the most convincing reminder of the world’s continued fundamental dependence on fossil carbon. Can a marginal slip of 1.5 percent in a quarter-century be followed in the coming 25–30 years with the substitution of some 80 percent of the world’s primary energy for non-carbon alternatives, in order to come close to zero fossil carbon by 2050? Business as usual will not get us there, and the only plausible scenarios to do so are either a collapse of the global economy or the adoption of new energy sources at a pace and on a scale far beyond our immediate capabilities.