The enthusiasm for low carbon emissions is promoting record investment in energy technologies. In 2024, global energy investment first exceeded the US $ 3 trillion, of which two-thirds went to clean-energy technologies and infrastructure. This trend is wide in World Energy Investment 2024 Report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) is reflected by a boom in research on cheap and clean energy. In the Nature Index, which tracks output in selected natural and health-science magazines, such research was responsible for only 3.7% of all papers in 2015. By 2023, the figure had increased by 8.3%. Although these are positive steps in infection away from fossil fuels, a deep eye on data reveals challenges that must be addressed for clean energy to score globally.
Nature Index 2025 Energy
“There is a ramping of clean-energy investment against the background of plateau-fuel spending,” says IEA Investment and Finance Analyst, Tangui de Bianis. But, he says, it is probably prematurely to say that the light days of oil and gas are over, because that platework may mean that fossil fuels do not require as much investment as they once did to remain competitive.
The fact that renewable major areas do not meet demands, insist on the work that needs to be done to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. According to the IEA report, global demand for heat energy is used for warm buildings and power industrial processes – moving from the rate on which renewable items can be deployed to meet the need. The use of post -fossil fuel for heat is predicted to run a 5% increase in annual carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector between 2024 and 2030.
At the same time, the way of sharing clean-energy investment between countries is highly uneven (see ‘Stark imbalance’). For example, China is responsible for almost one-third of global expenses on renewal (and similar to global carbon emissions). In 2023, it spent an estimated $ 890 billion in clean-energy areas up to 40% in 2022, according to an analysis of the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Helsinki. It is shy as $ 950 billion from total global investments in fossil-fuel supply in 2023, as reported by IEA.
Source: World Energy Investment 2024IEA (2024)
A large part of China’s efforts in clean energy is building renewable power facilities. The country invested $ 359 billion in the region in 2024, compared to $ 106 billion to $ 85 billion in the United States and European Union. Emerging and developing economies, including Brazil, India and South Africa, are responsible for only 15% of global renewable investment, and are remembering the benefits of clean-energy technologies including energy freedom.
Solar stronghold
Between renewable goods, solar power dominates research and investment. In 2023, Solar first invested in every second energy type combined. This again occurred in 2024, and the difference widened (see ‘solar supremacy’). “We always underestimate how online solar is coming,” D Biannasis says. “It indicates that the technology is rich and reaching its maturity.
China is the world’s most advanced manufacturing basis for solar energy production. The Tongwei company, for example, produced sufficient solar panels in 2023, to meet 10% of the global demand that year. But the huge solar-pane plants that specialize in their weaknesses in China. D Biannis noted that if one of them undergoes an industrial accident, it will “completely disrupt the supply chain”. For now, however, China remains a leading force in solar-energy technology and features.
Source: World Energy Investment 2024IEA (2024)
China’s dominance also extends to nuclear power. According to the IEA report, in the last five years, China has added 11 gigawatts to its nuclear power capacity, carrying forward any other country. It was only one of the two countries (the other Egypt) that began building on a new nuclear power plant in 2023, and last year, among the estimated $ 80 billion spent on nuclear power globally, China contributed to the lion’s share. “Those countries that produce the most nuclear plants, most solar and most air, called D Biannasis. “We call them the powerhouse of clean-energy infection.”
Meanwhile, the United States is likely to continue its trade and supply chains from China. President Donald Trump has indicated that he is in favor of fossil fuel on renewable goods and promised to withdraw the United States by the Paris Climate Agreement earlier this year.
