THE ENERGY TRANSITION THAT ISN’T (2024 EDITION)

Contributed by Robert Lyman © 2024. Robert Lyman’s bio can be read here.

One of the central premises of climate campaigners is that the whole world is now engaged in a rapid, unstoppable “energy transition” from hydrocarbons to electricity powered by renewable energy. This “storyline” is endlessly repeated and broadly accepted by the mainstream media in the OECD countries, and consequently accepted as beyond question by most members of the public. It provides much of the rationale for claims that countries like Canada should incur billions of dollars in costs to reduce GHG emissions.

The facts do not support the claim. For over seventy years, the Statistical Review of World Energy has been the most authoritative source of data on global energy supply and demand trends. In recent years the Review has added data concerning greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The 2024 edition of the Review, released in June 2024, contains full energy data for 2023 and for the preceding years going back to 2013. In this article, I will compare the facts concerning world energy trends as reported in the Review with the claims of climate campaigners.