Global electricity sources

Data: Ember; Chart: Ben Geman/Axios

Axios - Global electricity generation from renewables edged past coal in 2025, per new analysis by Ember, a clean energy think tank.

The inflection point with renewables — mostly hydro, solar, wind and bioenergy — helped to keep CO2 emissions from power essentially flat even as consumption rose, it found.

A separate report Monday from the International Energy Agency reached a similar conclusion. It showed coal, long the world's largest power source, barely hanging onto the title last year. Coal and renewables both had about a 34% share, with the former an inch ahead, IEA found.

 Both reports show solar's growth is doing lots of heavy lifting in 2026, even though it remains a small share of total global generation (8.7% last year by Ember's tally).