How energy accounting tricks make clean power progress invisible
Influential voices use misleading statistics whilst electric cars surge and China's coal share plummets
Something extraordinary happened in 2017 that almost nobody noticed, humanity reached peak petrol car sales. The internal combustion engine—that nineteenth-century invention that has defined modern civilisation—quietly began its retreat from the global marketplace. Yet if you followed the headlines, you'd barely know this historic turning point occurred.
This blindness to transformation reveals a deeper problem. At precisely the moment when clean energy is advancing fastest, influential voices are declaring it a failure. Former prime minister Tony Blair warns that phasing out fossil fuels is "doomed to fail." Energy veteran Daniel Yergin dismisses the entire energy transition as illusory. Their evidence? A single, devastating statistic, fossil fuels still provide 80% of global energy, barely changed from 85% in 1990.
But here's what they don't tell you, that statistic is a trick.
The great energy accounting deception
To understand how numbers can lie whilst appearing truthful, you need to grasp what energy analysts call the difference between "primary" and "useful" energy. It's a distinction that changes everything.
Primary energy measures raw fuels—crude oil in the ground, coal in the mine, sunlight hitting solar panels. But this isn't what powers your home or moves your car. That requires useful energy, electricity flowing through wires, petrol refined and delivered to your tank, heat warming your radiator.
Here's the crucial point, fossil fuels are spectacularly wasteful. When you burn coal to generate electricity, roughly two-thirds of the energy vanishes as waste heat up the smokestack. Your petrol car squanders about 80% of the fuel's energy as heat rather than motion. These aren't design flaws—they're fundamental physical limitations of thermal engines.
Renewable technologies don't have this problem. Solar panels convert sunlight directly to electricity. Electric motors transform nearly all their electrical input into motion. When you account for these efficiency differences, the entire energy landscape shifts.
Michael Liebreich, the Cambridge-educated engineer who founded Bloomberg New Energy Finance, has spent years exposing what he calls "the primary energy fallacy." When you measure what actually powers civilisation—useful energy—fossil fuels provide not 80% but roughly 68% of global needs.
That gap isn't statistical nitpicking. It's the difference between clean energy meeting 20% versus 32% of humanity's actual energy services. Instead of renewable sources providing one-fifth of our power, they already deliver one-third. The transition isn't stalling—it's more advanced than almost anyone realises.
The automotive revolution nobody saw coming
Consider what happened to cars whilst everyone was watching other things. In 2016, internal combustion engines powered 97% of global vehicle sales. Electric cars were expensive curiosities, selling fewer than 800,000 units worldwide. Experts predicted gradual, decade-long adoption curves.
Instead, the market exploded. By 2024, electric and hybrid vehicles captured over 22% of global sales—more than 17 million units. In China, the world's largest car market, they approached 50% market share. Norway hit 88%. Even in the historically conservative United Kingdom, electric vehicles reached 30% of new sales.
The numbers reveal something remarkable, traditional car sales peaked in 2017 at roughly 80 million units, then fell 23% over seven years. This wasn't recession-driven decline—it was technological displacement occurring in real time. Every month, electric vehicles claimed larger shares of incremental demand whilst petrol cars retreated.
Yet this transformation remained largely invisible to public discourse. Unlike previous disruptions—the replacement of horses with automobiles, say—this shift happened gradually. Old technology persisted alongside new, masking the underlying transition until the curves crossed decisively.
The automotive case illuminates a broader truth, we're systematically poor at recognising turning points whilst they occur. Major transitions announce themselves through growth rates and market share trends, not dramatic headlines.
China's impossible contradiction
Nowhere are these patterns more complex than in China, which simultaneously embodies every contradiction of global climate action. The country added 356 gigawatts of renewable capacity in 2024—equivalent to building the entire solar and wind infrastructure of the United States in a single year. Yet China also constructed 93% of the world's new coal plants.
Climate hawks point to the renewable buildout as proof of transition acceleration. Fossil fuel advocates highlight coal expansion as evidence of greenwashing. Both miss the underlying dynamic.
Analysis by Carbon Brief reveals the hidden story, coal's share of Chinese electricity generation collapsed from 73% in 2016 to 51% by mid-2024. Clean energy reached 44% of the mix during peak months. For the first time in decades, Chinese national emissions began falling despite economic growth.
This apparent contradiction—building both coal plants and renewable capacity—reflects how energy transitions actually occur within existing political systems. New generation increasingly comes from clean sources, but existing infrastructure continues operating until economics or policy force retirement. The transformation happens through changing utilisation patterns, not dramatic shutdowns.
China's approach frustrates climate advocates demanding purity of purpose. But it's enabling the fastest deployment of clean energy in human history whilst managing massive economic and social complexities. The country alone will install more renewable capacity by 2030 than existed globally in 2020.
The pessimism industry's coordinated campaign
The persistence of misleading energy statistics isn't coincidental. It reflects something resembling coordinated messaging from influential figures with institutional backing and, often, clear financial interests in maintaining the status quo.
Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of S&P Global, co-authored a Foreign Affairs piece dismissing energy transition based entirely on primary energy accounting. Tony Blair's institute subsequently published a report using nearly identical framings and reaching remarkably similar conclusions about renewable energy's futility. As Liebreich notes, these arguments have been "widely amplified by the oil and gas industry."
This represents evolved climate opposition. Instead of denying global warming, these voices accept the need for action whilst arguing current approaches are hopeless. The message shifts from "climate change isn't real" to "clean energy isn't working"—using selective statistics to support predetermined conclusions.
The pattern suggests institutional rather than individual scepticism. When former prime ministers and respected analysts deploy identical methodological choices that happen to favour fossil fuel incumbents, coincidence becomes implausible. Statistical manipulation provides intellectual cover for economic self-interest.
Reality breaks through
Strip away the accounting tricks and coordinated pessimism, and a different picture emerges. The International Energy Agency projects that renewables will meet 95% of electricity demand growth through 2027. Solar and wind together will provide more than 90% of new generation capacity. Coal's share of global electricity will fall below 33% for the first time this century.
These aren't aspirational targets—they're forecasts based on existing policies and market trends. The transition is accelerating under its own economic momentum as renewable costs plummet below fossil alternatives in most markets.
None of this guarantees climate success. Current trajectories still lead to dangerous warming levels. Massive acceleration remains necessary across all sectors, and political obstacles could derail progress. But the speed of change matters enormously for both climate outcomes and economic positioning.
Countries and companies that recognise transition acceleration can position themselves advantageously. Those that assume stagnation may find themselves stranded with obsolete assets and outdated strategies. In energy markets, being wrong about direction and speed carries trillion-dollar consequences.
The choice of statistics isn't academic—it shapes how societies understand their options, how investors allocate capital, and how politicians frame policies. When the speed of energy transition may determine civilisation's trajectory, getting the measurement right becomes existential.
Perhaps most importantly, the systematic misrepresentation of progress reveals something disturbing about how powerful interests shape public understanding of transformational change. In a world evolving faster than its incumbents would prefer, independent analysis becomes an act of clarity.
And optimism grounded in evidence becomes a form of rebellion.