Emerging Economies Are the Key to a Clean-Energy Future

The defining global story for the coming years won’t emerge from the boardrooms of yesterday’s energy giants. Instead, it will be shaped in the cities, industrial centres, and rural areas of emerging economies. A new era of growth is underway, fueled by clean energy, digital innovation, and modern manufacturing systems that are changing how economies produce, store, move, and use power.

This change is happening now, at a speed and scale that would have seemed impossible just five years ago, driven increasingly by developing economies rather than just the advanced ones. 

Today, over 60% of emerging and developing economies are surpassing the United States and Europe in clean electrification. From East Africa to Southeast Asia and from North Africa to Latin America, the growth of solar, wind, and battery storage is outpacing both fossil fuels and traditional strategies still common in many developed countries.

The effects are already noticeable. Global demand for fossil fuels has levelled off as country after country reaches its peak and starts a steady decline. In the first half of 2025, fast growth in solar and wind energy, along with electrification in light industry and transportation, led to a drop in fossil-fuel demand in China. As the world’s key energy market, China’s shift has significant implications: today, about three-quarters of global fossil demand comes from countries that have already peaked.

Three strong forces are coming together to drive this transition.

First, the fossil-fuel industry has always been very inefficient, with about two-thirds of the energy in coal, oil, and gas wasted as heat. Electro-based technologies change this. Solar power, electric motors, and heat pumps are two to four times more efficient, allowing for better living standards with less energy and at much lower cost.

The second factor is economic. Fossil fuels are extracted resources: as supplies decrease, costs rise. Electro-based technologies are manufactured. In most of the world, solar and wind are now the cheapest sources of new energy. Investment is already shifting, with most new energy funding going into electrification technologies instead of fossil fuels.

The third factor involves geopolitics. The old energy system left many regions reliant on unstable, imported fuels. Electro-based systems tap into local resources. Almost every country has enough solar and wind potential to meet its energy needs multiple times over.

Emerging and developing economies hold most of the world’s solar and wind resources and about half of the critical minerals needed for the energy transition. Given their potential and growing energy demand, these countries could contribute to more than 60% of global clean energy growth over the next decade. A new “industrial sunbelt” is forming, with countries leveraging abundant resources and strong policies to become clean industry leaders. More than half of the global clean industrial investment pipeline is now in this sunbelt, covering sectors like aluminium, cement, chemicals, aviation, and steel.

However, financing remains a major challenge. Despite having the strongest solar resources, some regions have received only a small portion of global clean energy investment in recent years. By 2030, annual clean-energy investment in emerging markets and developing economies outside China must increase several times, surpassing a trillion dollars per year. Most of this funding will need to come from the private sector.

To attract investment at this scale, governments need effective strategies that bring together public and private finance in support of national climate plans. Country-led investment platforms are proving to be one of the best tools for achieving this.

Attracting private capital starts with understanding what success looks like. Countries, especially in the Global South, need clear, practical guidance on clean-energy investment planning, backed by adaptable best practices. 

Simultaneously, building financial skills, integrating expertise into public institutions, and empowering governments to create credible and attractive clean-energy plans must be prioritised.

Plans must then be turned into action. By speeding up support to make projects financially viable, ambition can be transformed into tangible actions that create a steady stream of investable clean-energy opportunities with real-world effects. 

Finally, resilience must be built from the ground up. While clean-energy infrastructure can be designed to withstand severe weather, it is still vulnerable to climate risks. Including resilience and adaptation measures during project planning can significantly lower potential losses at relatively low cost.

This is how the electrification revolution will be funded and how the next phase of sustainable global growth will develop. The coming years present a crucial chance to speed up this agenda, opening the door to clean power, economic opportunities, and climate progress for everyone.

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