The stage may be set for the world’s use of fossil fuels to begin dropping in about five years time, thanks to China’s rapid adoption of renewables and its increasing reliance on electricity, clean energy think tank Ember said in a report on Tuesday.
The researchers identified how fossil fuel consumption could be pressured into long-term decline, via the scale and pace of China’s own green transition, and its dominant role exporting clean energy to other countries. In 2023, one-quarter of emerging countries had leapfrogged the US in terms of the electrification of their economies, helped by the availability of cheap Chinese clean-tech, according to Ember.