Renewable energy has passed a “crucial turning point”, producing more electricity than coal on a global scale for the first time, according to a new report. The report, by climate think tank Ember, found that solar and wind power generation had outpaced the growing demand for electricity in the first six months of 2025, as well as producing more power than coal.
Małgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, the report’s author and a senior electricity analyst at Ember, said: “Solar and wind are now growing fast enough to meet the world’s growing appetite for electricity. This marks the beginning of a shift where clean power is keeping pace with demand growth.”
This is important as demand continues to rise worldwide, driven by factors including economic and population growth, a huge appetite for data, and a somewhat ironic need for more cooling as temperatures rise. The result of this increasing demand is that, while global solar generation increased by a record 31% in the first six months of the year, with wind increasing by nearly 8%, fossil fuel generation only fell by less than 1%.
Global turning point could see fossil fuel emissions plateau
Wiatros-Motyka said that this was still a “significant” moment, however, which could see the “plateauing” of emissions.
The report looked at data from 88 countries, representing most of the power generation and electricity demand globally. It found that solar and wind together increased by more than 400 terawatt hours. Crucially, this was more than the overall increase in demand over the same period.
Looking at individual markets, the report found that China had added more solar and wind power in the first half of 2026 than the rest of the world combined. India also added record renewable growth that outpaced its own increase in demand. Total emissions fell in both countries, whereas the increase in demand outpaced renewable generation in the US. Fossil fuel generation and overall emissions rose in both the US and the EU.
A separate report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) halved its forecast for the growth of renewable energy in the US by the end of this decade. It did, however, find that renewables could more than double on a global scale by the end of the decade, with China remaining the world’s largest renewable market.
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