Racing against the clock: Modeling the global transition to renewable energy technologies

Thirty years after the first UN conference of parties on global climate change (COP1), the global energy sector remains reliant on fossil fuels, with low- to zero-emission power sources struggling to take the lead in most national markets. Despite the sustained growth of solar and wind energy technologies (SWET) being confirmed in 2023, carbon emissions and climate constraints continue to rise, suggesting that a pathway toward net-zero emissions remains complex. Our analysis uses innovation diffusion models to offer an up-to-date perspective of the current co-evolution of SWET against its main fossil competitors, namely coal and natural gas energy technologies (CGET), across the 75 largest energy-consuming countries. Our model-based evidence suggests that the energy transition struggles in crowding-out traditional fossil fuels and therefore is hardly identifiable as a worldwide trend. Important achievements remain highly localized to only a few regions worldwide suggesting an uneven process, with still many barriers and needing public support as well as international cooperation. Model-based forward projections suggest that most countries will likely achieve the SWET-to-CGET parity well beyond the energy milestone of 2030. Current war scenarios, local crises and the declarations (as well as actions) of the new US administration about US energy policy, bring substantial uncertainty on the global perspectives.