By John Hugh DeMastri

Fossil fuels continued to overwhelmingly dominate global energy supply in 2022, holding steady at roughly 82% of consumption despite the rapid growth of renewables, according to the Energy Institute’s (EI) Statistical Review of World Energy report released Monday.

Renewable power, excluding hydroelectric power, grew nearly 1 percentage point to 7.5% of global energy consumption, according to the report, which the former BP-affiliate EI created in partnership with accounting giant KPMG and consultancy Kearney. The combined share of hydroelectric and nuclear power fell by roughly 0.3 percentage points to roughly 10.7%, while fossil fuels fell by roughly 0.5 percentage points from 82.3% to 81.8% of power consumption.

“As the world emerged from the pandemic and its impact on demand, 2022 witnessed energy markets again in crisis, with the Ukraine conflict upending assumptions about supply around the world,” EI CEO Nick Wayth said, according to the organization’s Monday press release. “That in turn precipitated a price crisis and profound cost-of-living pressures across many economies. The EI Statistical Review shows how the world’s energy markets struggled to respond to the crisis, how the trade and flow of energy contorted, and how vulnerable our economies are to supply and price shocks.”

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Fossil fuels’ dominance was mainly driven by small increases in coal — spurred by growth in India and China — and oil, which were offset by a decline in natural gas demand, which was driven by a 13.5% decline in European consumption, EI reported. European countries struggled with high prices on natural gas last year after Russia cut imports to the continent.

The U.S. has taken a sharp turn towards renewables under President Joe Biden, who proposed cutting all oil and gas subsidies from the federal budget in the fiscal year 2024 to save an estimated $31 billion per year. Private analysts estimate that his signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which is intended to spur investment in renewable power and other green tech like electric vehicles, could cost as much as $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years — roughly $120 billion per year on average.

The Statistical Review of World Energy is widely considered an industry benchmark and is the first time in the over 70-year history that it has not been authored by British energy giant BP, according to Reuters.

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