Solar Power Is Growing, But Still 'Has a Long Way to Go'

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, calls climate change "the biggest threat to humanity." A new UN report found that solar power had the largest share of electricity generated by a new source in 2017.

Despite the expansion in renewable energy sectors, solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal power accounts only for about 12 percent of all electricity consumed globally. The biggest share remains fossil fuels. “This shows where we are heading,” Nils Stieglitz, a professor at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, tells The New York Times. “The fact that renewables altogether are still far from providing the majority of electricity means that we still have a long way to go.”

The world leader in investing in renewables, by far, is China. The country accounted for nearly half of all renewable energy investments worldwide, pumping $86.5 billion into solar energy alone in 2017 in what the report described as “an extraordinary solar boom.” The United States also plays a leading role in developing solar power. It is historically the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, though, and its investments in renewables went down slightly in 2017, according to the report, to $40.5 billion.

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