After having awarded drugs against obesity and HIV in recent years, this year Science has changed course: recognition as Breakthrough of the Year (i.e. – scientific – achievement of the year) has gone to the global overtaking of fossil fuels by renewables.
In fact, 2025 was the first year in which clean energy generated by the sun and wind surpassed that produced by fossil fuels in several sectors. For the first time, renewable energies managed to cover the increase in global electricity consumption in the first six months of the year, and now provide the world with more energy than coal.
China in the lead. Leading this transition is China, a global leader in the production of renewable energy and key technologies such as solar panels and batteries. An apparently paradoxical record, given that the country is in the top 25 of the largest CO2 emitters in the world per capita (in first place in absolute terms, but it must be calculated that the population is equal to almost one and a half billion people). However, these data must be contextualized, taking into account first of all the fact that China is the “factory of the world”, responsible for over a third of global manufacturing production, and secondly that in the last year and a half its emissions have started to decrease.
Some obstacles. Although renewables are increasingly used globally, there are still several obstacles to overcome in order to leave fossil fuels behind: among these the resistance that some countries, such as the United States, oppose to the energy transition, the difficulty in recycling some key products such as solar panels and batteries, and the inability of infrastructures (in particular electricity grids) to manage all the renewable energy produced. According to a recent report by Beyond Fossil Fuels, in Europe alone around 1,700 GW of renewable energy remains stuck waiting to be distributed.
2025 has confirmed to us that saying goodbye to fossil fuels is possible: now, for the transition towards a clean energy future to be complete, we will have to work to innovate infrastructures, overcome political resistance and optimize the recycling of the materials used.
