Global Energy Tracker

The Global Energy Tracker allows you to gauge trends in energy use across the globe through time.

The charts below compile data on energy-consumption trends in seventy-nine countries going back to 1990. Each chart shows how much energy a given country consumes from nine different sources.

The charts display each country’s consumption data for each energy source by the amount of exajoules consumed, by exajoules consumed per capita, and as a share of that country’s total energy consumption. (Exajoules are a measure of energy; one exajoule is roughly equivalent to California’s annual electricity use.) Use the rightmost drop-down menu above the chart to toggle among those views. The leftmost drop-down menu lets you select groups of countries for display. You can create a custom list of countries or filter countries by region. Hover over the charts to see a country’s consumption within particular years.

As the legend below indicates, five energy sources covered by the tracker—coal, oil, natural gas, biofuels, and other (unclassified)—emit high levels of carbon dioxide. Four others—solar, wind, nuclear, and hydroelectric—are low-carbon emitters. Use the buttons above the charts to shade energy sources by high-carbon and low-carbon status, or, alternatively, to color each source individually. (High-carbon sources are grey; low-carbon ones, green.)

Together, the charts reveal significant trends in global energy usage. They show, for example, that high-carbon energy sources—especially oil—are the world’s dominant source of power. On average, 83 percent of tracker countries’ energy comes from high-carbon sources, and 37 percent specifically from oil.

Low-carbon sources, however, are on the rise, particularly in developed countries. Since 2010, the United States’ low-carbon consumption share climbed from 12 to 16 percent, the United Kingdom’s from 10 to 19 percent, and Germany’s from 14 to 19 percent. China, the world’s largest energy consumer, saw its low-carbon share rise from 9 to 15 percent. Rapid cost declines for low-carbon sources such as wind and solar, beneficiaries of technological innovation, explain much of the change. Still, low-carbon power’s share has actually declined in some rich countries, such as Japan—where it has fallen from 18 to 11 percent.

Some tracker countries rely highly on low-carbon energy. Twenty-five percent of Canada’s energy and 29 percent of Brazil’s, for example, comes from hydroelectric—compared with 9 percent for tracker countries on average. France derives over a third of its energy from nuclear. Other countries remain heavy users of higher-carbon sources. China derives 56 percent of its power from coal—although that figure is down from 70 percent a decade ago.

The map below aids in viewing trends in energy use across regions. Each country is shaded according to how much energy it consumes, with darker colors signaling greater use. Hover over a particular country to see its latest data, and, to view changes over time, use the slider above the map to adjust the date. You can use the leftmost drop-down menu above the map to select which energy source to view. The rightmost drop-down menu allows you to see the data in exajoules, exajoules per capita, or shares of total consumption.

The map highlights, among other trends, how energy use fell globally in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. As economic growth collapsed, global energy consumption fell 4 percent. Energy consumption fell similarly during the global financial crisis in 2009—by 5 percent in the United States, and 2 percent globally.

The final large chart below allows you zoom in on the historical energy use of each country, one at a time. Use the leftmost drop-down menu to choose which country to view.

Data Notes

The map and charts above show energy-consumption data for countries whose levels of consumption are calculated in the BP Statistical Review of Energy. All data is annual. The tracker’s per-capita consumption data is calculated using population statistics from the United Nations; all other data used in the tracker’s calculations comes from the BP Statistical Review of Energy. Countries’ consumption levels for a particular energy source are rounded down to zero when those levels fall below 0.005 exajoules.