Multiple international media outlets, including Carbon Brief and news site Down To Earth, describe this as the first such reversal since 1919. Ember's analysis is based on current country data for 2025 from 91 states, which together account for 93 percent of global electricity demand. According to Ember's methodology, latest annual values are estimated from monthly data when annual data is unavailable.
Solar energy was the decisive factor: its global generation grew in 2025 by a record 636 terawatt-hours to 2,778 terawatt-hours, a 30 percent increase from the previous year. Solar power alone covered 75 percent of global electricity demand growth; together with wind energy, it accounted for 99 percent. Coal power generation declined according to Ember by 63 terawatt-hours or 0.6 percent, the first decline since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Overall fossil electricity generation declined according to Ember by a total of 38 terawatt-hours or 0.2 percent; this was only the fifth time in this century and the first time since 2020 that it did not increase.
China and India Together Turn the Trend
According to Ember, the global decline in fossil electricity generation was driven by a historic turnabout in China and India, the two countries with the largest and third-largest fossil electricity generation respectively. In 2025, for the first time this century, fossil electricity generation in both countries declined simultaneously. In China it fell by 56 terawatt-hours or 0.9 percent because record additions primarily in solar energy covered all demand growth. In India it declined by 52 terawatt-hours or 3.3 percent, aided by record growth in solar and wind power, strong hydropower generation, and below-average demand growth.
Coal Remains Largest Single Electricity Source
Despite the decline, coal remained with 10,476 terawatt-hours the world's largest single electricity source, and fossil fuels together still provided more than half of global electricity. According to Ember, Asia remains the only world region where coal supplies more electricity than renewable energy: 52 percent compared to 32 percent in 2025, while 82 percent of global coal electricity generation occurred in this region.
What Critics Point Out
Rahmat Poudineh, head of electricity research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, explained that covering additional electricity demand from clean sources in an average year proves no permanent condition. According to him, a trend must also hold under extreme conditions like cold winters and hot summers because electrical systems are designed for peak demand rather than average values. Yannis Bassias, long-standing representative of the hydrocarbon industry and consultant at Amphore Energy, said renewable energy could cover additional demand but without flexible capacity, storage, and stronger networks could not guarantee stability even now. He described Europe's, Japan's, and Korea's dependence on imported liquefied gas as still structural.
In Comparison
Globally in 2025, coal according to Carbon Brief lagged renewable energy in every world region except Asia. In Europe, coal's share of electricity generation fell from 25 percent in 2005 to 13 percent in 2025, and in the EU-27 even to 9.2 percent; renewable energy has led there since 2013. In Oceania, coal's share fell over the same period from 67 to 36 percent; renewable energy overtook coal there in 2023 and reached 45 percent in 2025.
What Could Threaten the Success
How weather-dependent the trend is was shown according to Ember already in 2024: Ember had expected the turning point already for that year, but a summer with record heat drove air conditioning demand so strongly upward that alongside renewable energy, fossil electricity generation also grew. Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy and climate data analyst at Ember, explained that expanding clean electricity generation could structurally cover additional demand now and should absorb all demand growth in coming years. Ember's forecast assumes electricity demand and clean electricity generation continue growing at their current pace; a plateau of fossil electricity generation is initially expected and a sustained decline only from the early 2030s onward.