Renewables 2021 Global Status Report

  • News
  • by REN21

The share of fossil fuels in final energy has remained constant (around 80.2%) for the past decade, the world won’t reach net zero without a rapid scale-up of renewables, nor will it achieve its sustainable development goals.

Please note that this article and any associated images were originally published by REN21, here.

The share of fossil fuels in final energy has remained constant (around 80.2%) for the past decade, REN21’s Renewables 2021 Global Status Report reports. The world won’t reach net zero without a rapid scale-up of renewables, nor will it achieve its sustainable development goals.

Although the global renewable heating and cooling share in buildings remains low, some countries and regions have achieved relatively higher shares. In the EU, a global leader in this area, renewable energy accounted for more than 21% of total heating and cooling needs (including industrial process heat) in 2018 (latest data available).Certain Baltic and Nordic countries supply more than 50% of their building heat demand with renewables.

District energy networks can efficiently meet urban heating and cooling needs; however, these systems currently account for just 6.7% of heat demand in buildings.131 Moreover, the low global share of renewable energy in these networks (5.6%) means that only 0.4% of the world’s heat demand in buildings was met by renewables in district networks in 2018. Nevertheless, some European countries have achieved relatively high shares of renewables in the district heat supply (more than 50% in at least six countries in recent years) In 2020, solar thermal systems for district heating were brought online in China, Denmark and Germany, and these markets have continued to grow.

📄 – Please click here to view the report
Go Back