Energy Musings - August 4, 2025

UN Secretary-General Guterres is back cheerleading for renewables and demanding governments increase their efforts to save the world, which he says is already on the road to being saved.

Have We Reached Peak Climate Alarmism?

On July 22, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres spoke about the success of renewable energy in fighting climate change. He was introducing the 2024 study on the cost of renewable energy published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), a UN sister organization. Guterres told the assembled audience and online viewers:

“Throughout history, energy has shaped the destiny of humankind – from mastering fire, to harnessing steam, to splitting the atom. Now, we are on the cusp of a new era. Fossil fuels are running out of road. The sun is rising on a clean energy age.”

While declaring victory on the one hand, renewable energy is cheaper than newly constructed fossil fuel plants, Guterres acknowledged a problem. Governments must remove obstacles and increase investment in new renewable energy supplies, he implored. We guess something isn’t working correctly.

What Guterres failed to explain to his audience is that the gains of renewable energy are primarily in the electricity sector, not in total primary energy use. The reality is that renewable energy increases are adding to the growth of primary energy and displacing little of the existing fossil fuel consumption.

According to the 2025 Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy data, the increase in oil, gas, and coal energy from 2023 to 2024 was 7.60 exajoules, a large measure of energy. Renewable energy increased 2.77 exajoules. That means fossil fuel use increased 2.74 times the increase in renewable energy. If we expand renewable energy sources to include hydropower, fossil fuels still increase at 2.2 times the growth rate of renewables. Likewise, if we add nuclear to fossil fuels, the increase was 2.45 times. These figures demonstrate that we are in an additive phase of energy growth and not a replacement phase. Claiming otherwise is misinformation.

Here is a chart showing the history of energy consumption by fuel since 1800. It shows how traditional biomass has remained relatively steady over the years. The chart highlights the beginning of the Age of Coal, followed by the Age of Oil and then Natural Gas. Hydropower became a more significant contributor to the global energy mix once the world had access to steel and concrete, enabling the construction of large dams across rivers to tap their energy. Renewable energy – wind and solar – emerged as new energy supplies in the 2000s.

Fossil fuels have powered the world since records began in 1800.

This chart demonstrates the dominance of fossil fuels in powering the global economy. It plots the relative shares of fossil fuels (nuclear, gas, oil, coal, and biomass) versus renewables (other renewables, biofuels, wind, solar, and hydropower) for 1800-2024.

Renewables have gained market share in recent years.

Between 1800 and 1960, the fuel data was presented every decade. Beginning in 1965, the fuel data was presented annually. There is no question that renewables, broadly defined, have increased their share of total primary energy in recent years.

To understand the magnitude of renewable energy’s gains over the past 25 years, we plotted gas, oil, and coal consumption versus the broadest definition of renewable energy, but excluding hydropower. For comparison, we also plotted the share from just wind and solar, which climate change proponents often cite as a solution to our energy pollution challenge. For the past eight years, wind and solar have been roughly two percentage points below the broader renewable energy share.

Wind and solar share is 2% points below the total renewable share.

When considering the share of global electricity generation, renewable energy appears to be capturing a significantly larger market share. The problem is that the terminology used to discuss the changes in the energy sources for generating electricity shifts. It transitions from “renewable” to “clean energy,” as reported by energy think tank EMBER. That shift allows a much broader definition, which helps to impress the public. The headline on the chart and EMBER’s most recent industry report hails that clean energy captured 41% of global electricity generation in 2024.

Hydropower and nuclear represent over half of the clean energy share.

If we consider only wind, solar, and other renewables, the share falls below half of EMBER’s headline number. Both nuclear and hydropower account for larger shares than wind or solar. It is correct to note that the shares of wind and solar have increased in recent years, while hydropower and nuclear have not. What is not apparent is how vital government subsidies for wind and solar are in driving their generation growth.

Guterres has been a leading figure in the climate change hysteria. It is hard to remember when climate change was referred to as “climate warming.” That phraseology, which lasted for years, proved too tame for the activists. They needed more active language, and Guterres helped provide it, along with a Swedish teenager who reveled in extreme language.

The need for more active climate language was accompanied by constant predictions of the planet's demise if we fail to control and reduce CO2 emissions. The latest warning comes from the BBC, which claims that the world has three years remaining before it crosses the 1.5ºC global temperature rise and the unleashing of catastrophic conditions. Will this prediction join the list of failed disaster forecasts?

We are continuing to add to failed climate change predictions.

Guterres was an active contributor to these catastrophic claims. He was willing to stand in the Pacific Ocean off one of the many island nations, claiming they are sinking below the water due to climate change’s impact on rising sea levels. His photo on the cover of Time magazine in 2019 has been imitated by other island politicians who have set up their offices in the water to dramatize their claims. The problem is that geological and meteorological studies have demonstrated that 97% of the Pacific Ocean islands are not sinking, but rather growing.

Rather than sinking, 97% of Pacific Ocean islands are growing.

Determining the proper phrase to describe the climate problem that would generate public outrage and demands for politicians to act became a popular exercise among climate scientists and media personalities. Global warming was proving too timid and inaccurate, according to climate activists. A climate scientist with the U.K. Met Office declared “global heating” a better term. His rationale was that “[g]lobal warming doesn’t’ capture the scale of destruction.” The scientist noted that temperatures had risen by 0.32 ºF per decade over the past 40 years. Therefore, global heating was a more descriptive term.

Another popular climate change term in the early 2000s, following the release of Al Gore’s movie and book, An Inconvenient Truth, was the “greenhouse effect.” It too was dropped from the lexicology because it didn’t convey a sense of urgency or trigger an emotional response.

In 2019, the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper updated its writer’s style guide, which is followed by much of the European media. It declared climate change to be too passive and favored terms like “climate crisis,” “climate emergency,” and “climate breakdown.” “Climate disaster” was invoked by a UN representative in 2022 to describe the planet’s condition, but even that phrase proved inadequate. How much more extreme could we get?

Leave it to Guterres to describe the planet’s climate as “boiling.” However, climate scientists were at a loss to explain how that could be since water boils at 100 ºC (212 ºF), and the globe’s average temperature is nowhere near those thresholds. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) latest report, the world’s average temperature is 15.16°C (59.31°F).

The challenge Guterres and other climate activists face is a skeptical public, one that is becoming outraged over soaring power bills caused by the push for renewable energy. The public remains unconvinced of the climate disaster narrative partly because reacting to fraction-of-a-degree changes in temperatures, something people experience daily, is difficult to grasp. That is partly why climate activists hammer on the threats from extreme weather events. However, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) cannot attribute increased weather events to climate change.

A little over a year ago, Guterres admonished the public that the planet was rapidly warming and drastic action was required to prevent the climate disaster. He cited the world’s carbon budget had only 200 billion tons of room before triggering disasters by exceeding the 1.5 ºC global temperature rise agreed to a decade earlier in Paris. However, we are spewing 40 billion tons of carbon emissions a year, which will help us crash through the target before 2030. (The focus on linking carbon emissions with temperature changes may be misplaced. That is a topic for another day.)

To make his case, which was helped by months of reportedly record-high temperatures, Guterres invoked the image of people “…playing Russian roulette with our planet.” That is because they are burning fossil fuels that emit carbon emissions. Therefore, “We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell.” That exit ramp is renewable energy, now the cheapest power available, according to IRENA. The heading of the press release for the group’s recent report was: “91% of New Renewable Projects Now Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels Alternatives.”

Unfortunately, IRENA’s analysis is based on an analysis of the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), which is a flawed tool and should not be used to compare the cost of electricity produced by different technologies. LCOE treats every molecule of electricity as equal, but intermittent renewable energy requires additional costs not included in the analysis.

A recent analysis of renewable-heavy grids by energy data consulting firm Thunder Said Energy reached the following conclusion. “Most LCOE analysis is flawed, as it only looks at individual generation sources, and does not consider the total system costs of the overall grid, which must achieve round-the-clock reliability, and high power quality.”

The firm goes on to note, “Renewables have similar LCOEs as conventional generation sources. Yet ramping renewables to c50% of a developed world power grid can inflate total system costs by at least 50%. This is because renewables require back-ups, additional T&D (transmission and distribution), and power electronics.” They showed the impact of the additional costs and the effect of the avoided fuel expense in the following chart.

How renewable energy inflates electricity prices.

LCOE fails to value electricity on the same basis as customers. Electricity consumers prioritize reliability over affordability and cleanliness in their power. Climate activists like Guterres are facing pushback from the public over the high electricity prices they are confronting, along with the increased frequency of blackouts and brownouts that disrupt daily lives.

The public pushback on climate alarmism reflects its skepticism of the claim. Besides being upset with high electricity prices and other mandates forcing them to spend their limited budgets in ways they oppose, they are not worried about climate change. The most recent Gallup poll of the most important concerns of Americans is enlightening. It contrasts with those polls touting the public’s concern, which begin with questions about climate change that drive respondents’ answers. A more realistic approach is to seek lists of the issues the respondents are most concerned about. The Gallup poll approaches its survey in this manner. Their latest poll is for June 2025. Environment/Pollution/Climate Change ranks 24th out of 39 non-economic issues listed by the respondents. The issue does not achieve the 1% threshold, after having reached it in three of the prior four months. It is just not a concern for Americans.

Gallup’s poll highlights Americans' lack of concern about climate change.

The corporate world is also pushing back on the energy shift demands of climate activists. Companies across the globe are scaling back or abandoning their net-zero emission commitments. Managements understand that meeting these goals will accomplish little in reducing global carbon emissions; however, they will raise the cost of conducting business, which will be paid for by customers.

The number of communities that are objecting to wind and solar farms within their borders continues to increase. In 2012, the European Platform Against Windfarms had 555 members. Today, membership has grown to 1,615.

Energy writer Robert Bryce maintains a wind and solar rejection database. Over the past decade, there have been at least 499 rejections or restrictions on wind energy in the U.S. The Global Renewable Rejection Database shows at least 87 rejections or restrictions of wind energy projects outside of the U.S. since 2016. There have been 27 rejections of wind energy projects around the world so far in 2025. These numbers are significant, given that wind and solar developers often offer money to local communities to gain public support for their projects.

Guterres is beating a drum about our impending climate disaster and the slowness of governments in ramping up their renewable energy investments. He aims to energize the delegates attending the COP 30 conference this November. Flawed arguments and science (to be analyzed in another article) will not prevent the climate activists from continuing media over-exaggerations.