Oil, gas and coal still account for 86% of global energy

An interesting detail from the latest statistical review of global energy barely made the headlines. Despite decades of talk about the energy transition, more than 86% of the world's primary energy still comes from fossil fuels — oil, gas and coal.

The sharp revision in the figures is not due to the failure of renewable energy, but to a change in the calculation methodology in 2025. The International Energy Agency has abandoned the so-called heat replacement method, which has been used for years to estimate the share of renewable energy and has effectively overstated its contribution.

The physical energy content method is now used. It complies with UN and Eurostat standards and takes into account not the hypothetical amount of energy that renewable energy sources could replace, but the actual output.

As a result, the structure of global primary energy looks like this:

— renewable energy sources: about 5.5% instead of the previous 8%

— nuclear energy: 4–5%

— fossil fuels: about 87%

The key conclusion is not that green energy has begun to lose ground. Its growth continues. However, the new methodology clearly shows that its contribution was previously overestimated. The world is not replacing the old energy system with a new one — it is simply adding new sources on top of the old ones.

After three decades of climate policy, nine out of ten units of energy in the world remain fossil fuels. The updated figures dispel illusions and bring the conversation about the energy transition back to reality: the process is far from complete and requires much more effort than is commonly believed.