Energy
The world lacks a safe, low-carbon, and cheap large-scale energy infrastructure.
Until we scale up such an energy infrastructure, the world will continue to face two energy problems: hundreds of millions of people lack access to sufficient energy, and the dominance of fossil fuels in our energy system drives climate change and other health impacts such as air pollution.
To ensure everyone has access to clean and safe energy, we need to understand energy consumption and its impacts around the world today and how this has changed over time.
On this page, you can find all our data, visualizations, and writing relating to energy.
Research & Writing
The world’s energy problem
The world faces two energy problems: most of our energy still produces greenhouse gas emissions, and hundreds of millions lack access to energy.
What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?
Fossil fuels are the dirtiest and most dangerous energy sources, while nuclear and modern renewable energy sources are vastly safer and cleaner.
Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
In most places, power from new renewables is now cheaper than new fossil fuels.
Overview Articles on Energy
Energy Access and Consumption
Energy poverty and indoor air pollution: a problem as old as humanity that we can end within our lifetime
The number of people without electricity more than halved over the last 20 years
How many people do not have access to clean fuels for cooking?
Global comparison: how much energy do people consume?
The ‘Energy Ladder’: What energy sources do people on different incomes rely on?
Energy Sources and Transitions
How have the world’s energy sources changed over the last two centuries?
Is the world making progress in decarbonizing energy?
A number of countries have decoupled economic growth from energy use, even if we take offshored production into account
How much energy do countries consume when we take offshoring into account?
Energy Prices and Impacts
More Key Articles on Energy
Cite this work
Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this topic page, please also cite the underlying data sources. This topic page can be cited as:
Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) - “Energy” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/energy' [Online Resource]
BibTeX citation
@article{owid-energy,
author = {Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado and Max Roser},
title = {Energy},
journal = {Our World in Data},
year = {2023},
note = {https://ourworldindata.org/energy}
}
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