The world wants to “transition” away from fossil fuels toward green energy, but the difficult reality is this: Dirty fuels are not going away — or even declining — anytime soon.
The total amount of renewable energy that’s available is growing. That’s good news for a world threatened by potentially devastating climate change.
But the increase in renewable energy is still lower than the increase in global energy demand overall. A “transition” from fossil fuels may come someday, but for now, renewable energy isn’t even keeping pace with rising energy demand — so fossil fuel demand is still growing.
“The global power market is experiencing rapid power demand growth as markets recover from the pandemic. Despite all the capacity additions in renewables generation, the amount of power currently generated by renewables is still not enough to meet this increased demand,” Matthew Boyle, manager of global coal and Asia power analytics at S&P Global Platts, told CNBC.
The global supply of renewables will grow by 35 gigawatts from 2021 to 2022, but global power demand growth will go up by 100 gigawatts over the same period, according to Boyle. Countries will have to tap traditional fuel sources to meet the rest of the demand. A gigawatt is 1 billion watts.
Projections from the International Energy Agency tell a similar story. Global electricity demand is set to rebound strongly, jumping by close to 5% this year and by 4% in 2022, according to the IEA.
At the same time, the amount spent on oil and gas has declined as prices collapsed in 2020 and the industry faced growing pressure to move away from dirty fuels. Total spending in 2021 was a little more than $350 billion – “well below” 2019 levels, said the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2021 report released last month.
“The world is not investing enough to meet its future energy needs … Transition-related spending is gradually picking up, but remains far short of what is required to meet rising demand for energy services in a sustainable way,” the IEA report said.
That shortfall will only widen as economies reopen and travel resumes, with demand already spiking to pre-pandemic levels. The IEA said the rapid “but uneven” recovery from the pandemic is straining energy markets, sparking sharp rises in prices for natural gas, coal and electricity.
That said, just because major energy companies may be cutting investment in fossil fuels doesn’t mean those emissions have stopped altogether.
Speaking at the Green Horizon Summit chaired by CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum during the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink expressed worries that publicly traded oil companies are lowering their reportable emissions by merely selling parts of their business to private companies that are less transparent than big firms traded on public markets.
Fossil fuels as necessary backup
One problem with renewables is that many sources are at the mercy of the weather.
“You might build a lot of wind farms, you might have hydro reservoirs and and hydro generation facilities, and you might have a lot of solar panels,” Anthony Yuen, head of energy strategy at Citi Research told CNBC in a phone interview. “The problem is: What if you don’t have enough water, wind, or solar versus your initial planning assumption?”
Renewable energy sources tend to under-deliver during certain periods — such as for instance in the month of September, when there’s less wind power generated in Europe and China, according to Boyle of S&P Global Platts.
Yuen said countries need to think through ways to ensure a reliable energy supply, and one “common ground solution” would be to use traditional fuels as a backup when renewables fail to carry through.
“We have to be more conservative, and that means two things. One is, you basically build more capacity [for renewables] so that you try to cover more,” he said. “But the other point is, what are some of the backup systems? Because sometimes, you know, let’s say the hydro reservoir or wind doesn’t show up for days … So the battery system is probably not sufficient.”
Yuen added that some “cleaner” fossil fuels such as natural gas can be used as a backup.
“Some would say that you’re perpetuating fossil fuel use. But what then is the trade-off between people actually having sufficient energy or not, right?” he said. “And that means that maybe carbon capture should still be on the table until the system is reliable enough that you don’t need fossil fuels.”
Carbon capture refers to technology designed to capture carbon dioxide from high-emitting activities such as power generation or industrial facilities that use either fossil fuels or biomass for fuel.
Such spending would need to double in the 2020s to maintain temperatures “well below” a 2 degrees Celsius rise, and they’d need to more than triple to keep it to a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase.
Getting the world on track for net-zero emissions by 2050 — a target set in the Paris Agreement — would require clean energy transition-related investment to accelerate from current levels to around $4 trillion annually by 2030, according to the IEA . That would mark an increase of more than three times the current investment.
Metals shortfall
Lithium, cobalt and nickel are metals essential to generating renewable energy, as well as for the production of electric vehicles.
UBS in a recent estimate said that demand will increase by 11 times for lithium, three times for cobalt and two times for nickel in the next decade.
“However, there is not sufficient supply to meet this demand projection based on our knowledge of known projects today,” the bank said.
According to its estimates, supply deficits will emerge for lithium in 2024, cobalt in 2023 and nickel in 2021.
UBS added that current power restrictions in China will make those shortages clear.
“The [electric vehicle] supply chain is almost wholly dependent on China for upstream materials, and long-term power outages could result in shortages,” the bank said in an October note. “Upstream” refers to materials needed at the production stage.
Paris’ bike-share system, Vélib has long been considered one of the shining success stories of urban micromobility. With a massive fleet of over 20,000 pedal and electric-assist bicycles around Paris, the service has helped millions of residents and tourists get around the City of Light without needing a car or scooter. But lately, a growing problem is threatening to knock the wheels off this urban mobility marvel: theft and joyriding.
According to city officials and the service operator, more than 600 Vélib bikes are now going missing every single week. That’s over 30 bikes a day simply vanishing from the system – some stolen outright, others taken on “joy rides” and never returned.
“At the moment we’re missing 3,000 bikes,” explained Sylvain Raifaud, head of the Agemob company that currently operates the Velib system. That’s nearly 15% of over 20,000 Vélib bikes across Paris.
The sticky-fingered culprits aren’t necessarily professional thieves or organized crime rings. Instead, they’re often regular users who treat the shared bikes like disposable toys.
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The city estimates that many people have figured out how to pry the bikes out of the system’s parking docks, unlocking one for a casual cruise and then ditching it somewhere far from a docking station.
Once pried free, the bikes are technically usable for the next 24 hours until their automatic locking feature kicks in. At that point, the bikes are often simply abandoned. Some end up in alleyways. Others get tossed in rivers. A few just disappear completely.
And since the bikes are intended to be parked at their many docking stations around the city, they don’t have GPS chips, further complicating recovery of “liberated” bikes.
The issue started small but has grown into more than an inconvenience – it’s beginning to undermine the entire purpose of the service. With bikes going missing at such a high rate, many Vélib docking stations are left empty, especially during rush hours.
Riders looking for a quick commute or a convenient hop across town are increasingly finding themselves without available bikes, or having to walk long distances to find a functioning one.
That kind of unreliability chips away at user confidence and threatens to drive potential riders back into cars, cabs, or other less sustainable forms of transport at a time when Paris has already made great strides to dramatically reduce car usage in the city.
The losses are financially painful, too. Replacing stolen or vandalized bikes isn’t cheap, and the resources spent on tracking down missing equipment or reinforcing anti-theft measures are stretching thin. Vélib has faced theft and vandalism issues before, especially during its early years, but this latest surge has officials sounding the alarm with renewed urgency.
Officials acknowledge that there’s no easy fix. Paris, like many cities with bike-share systems, walks a fine line between accessibility and accountability. Part of what makes Vélib so successful is its ease of use and widespread availability. But those same features make it vulnerable to misuse – especially when enforcement is limited and the consequences for abuse are minimal.
The timing of the problem is especially unfortunate. In recent years, Paris has seen impressive results in reducing car traffic, expanding bike lanes, and promoting cycling as a key part of its sustainable transport strategy. Vélib is a cornerstone of that plan. But if the system becomes too unreliable, it risks losing the very people it was designed to serve.
Meanwhile, as Parisians increasingly find themselves staring at empty docks, the challenge for the city and Vélib will be to restore confidence in the system without making it harder to use. That means striking the right balance between freedom and responsibility, between open access and protection against abuse.
In a city where cycling is supposed to be the future of mobility, losing thousands of bikes to joyriders and sticky fingers isn’t just frustrating; it’s unsustainable.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk attend a press event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
When they lose a significant other, most men do indeed become a “TRAIN WRECK.” Then they pick up the pieces of their lives and start living again — paying attention to their personal grooming, hitting the gym and discovering new hobbies.
What does the world’s richest man do? He starts a political party.
Last weekend, as the United States celebrated its independence from the British in 1776, Elon Musk enshrined his sovereignty from U.S. President Donald Trump by establishing the creatively named “American Party.”
Few details have been revealed, but Musk said the party will focus on “just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts,” and will have legislative discussions “with both parties” — referring to the U.S. Democratic and Republican Parties.
It might be easier to realize Musk’s dream of colonizing Mars than to bridge the political aisle in the U.S. government today.
To be fair, some thought appeared to be behind the move. Musk decided to form the party after holding a poll on X in which 65.4% of respondents voted in favor.
Folks, here’s direct democracy — and the powerful post-separation motivation — in action.
— CNBC’s Erin Doherty contributed to this report.
What you need to know today
And finally…
An investor sits in front of a board showing stock information at a brokerage office in Beijing, China.
US President Donald Trump, right, and Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a news conference in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, May 30, 2025.
Francis Chung | Bloomberg | Getty Images
When they find themselves without a significant other, most men finally start living: They pay attention to their personal grooming, hit the gym and discover new hobbies.
What does the world’s richest man do? He starts a political party.
Last weekend, as the United States celebrated its independence from the British in 1776, Elon Musk enshrined his sovereignty from U.S. President Donald Trump by establishing the creatively named “American Party.”
Few details have been revealed, but Musk said the party will focus on “just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts,” and will have legislative discussions “with both parties” — referring to the U.S. Democratic and Republican Parties.
It might be easier to realize Musk’s dream of colonizing Mars than to bridge the political aisle in the U.S. government today.
To be fair, some thought appeared to be behind the move. Musk decided to form the party after holding a poll on X in which 65.4% of respondents voted in favor.
Folks, here’s direct democracy — and the powerful post-separation motivation — in action.
[PRO] Wall Street is growing cautious on European equities. As investors seek shelter from tumult in U.S., the Stoxx 600 index has risen 6.6% year to date. Analysts, however, think the foundations of that growth could be shaky.
And finally…
Ayrton Senna driving the Marlboro McLaren during the Belgian Grand Prix in 1992.
Pascal Rondeau | Hulton Archive | Getty Images
The CEO mindset is shifting. It’s no longer all about winning
CEOs today aren’t just steering companies — they’re navigating a minefield. From geopolitical shocks and economic volatility to rapid shifts in tech and consumer behavior, the playbook for leadership is being rewritten in real time.
In an exclusive interview with CNBC earlier this week, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown outlined a leadership approach centered on urgency, momentum and learning from failure.