A clean energy future is closer than the headlines might suggest.
Christmas Day wasn’t the only calendar event on 25th December 1971 - It was also Earth Overshoot Day, but unlike the festive celebrations, this date marked a troubling milestone.
Earth Overshoot Day is the moment each year when global demand for the planet’s resources surpasses nature’s ability to regenerate in that same year. From this point onwards, we’re effectively depleting Earth’s reserves - fuelling biodiversity loss, worsening climate change and deepening global inequality.
A lot’s changed since 1971, but not necessarily in a good way. The date has crept up earlier each year, a clear sign that strain we’re putting on the planet is getting bigger each year. In 2025, Earth Overshoot Day 2025 falls on 24th July, a full week earlier than last year.
The UK’s situation is even more alarming. Our national overshoot day arrives two months earlier than the global average, reflecting our greater-than-average use of the earth’s resources.
The tipping point
Overfishing, deforestation, wasteful production and short product lifecycles all play a role in overshoot. Globally, less than 7% of materials are recycled back into use year, meaning over 90% of natural resources are wasted or lost.
Excessive carbon emissions are, unsurprisingly, a huge factor. Despite some progress, our dependence on fossil fuels hasn’t changed much since the 70s. Coal, oil and gas still account for 79% of the world’s energy production, and 87% of the world’s CO² emissions - it’s not sustainable. It’s endangering our biosphere and the lives and livelihoods of future generations. Shifting Earth Overshoot Day to a later date and achieving a more sustainable balance between consumption and regeneration is crucial.
It all sounds pretty bleak, especially when you factor in forecasts for global electricity demand from data centres is set to more than double in the next five years – exceeding the entire electricity consumption of Japan today. AI-driven energy demand alone is projected to quadruple. It’s little wonder that much of today’s commentary focuses on our governments’ inaction and the fear that rising demand will lock us into fossil fuel dependence for decades to come.
Reasons to be (cautiously) optimistic
What’s clear is that for us to transition to low-carbon electricity, the energy from sustainable sources needs to be cheaper than it is from fossil fuels.
And on that score, there is a more positive story; one being put forward by Professor Doyne Farmer, Director of the Complexity Economics programme at Oxford University. He and his colleagues have run highly accurate forecasts about the adoption and costs of renewable energy for decades. He argues that many models are much too pessimistic on the growth of renewables and cost reductions over time.
Take solar energy, where costs have reduced by 12% a year over the last 40 years, transforming solar from one of the most expensive electricity sources to the cheapest in many countries. Farmer predicts that by 2050, solar energy will be ten times cheaper than it is today.
The adoption of solar power has increased 30% per year for the last 40 years, and wind power adoption by 20%, a trend that’s expected to continue.
Whether global energy demand growth remains around 2% a year, or even if it increases to 5%, perhaps driven by AI and economic growth in emerging markets, Farmer predicts that it will be outstripped by growth in the supply of solar and wind power. That should lead to exponential growth in renewable energy usage and a similar decline in the use of fossil fuels.
The flipside of the AI energy demand debate is that as the adoption of AI becomes more widespread and integral to scientific discovery, it could accelerate innovation in technologies such as batteries and solar panels.
The scale and speed of the transition to a clean energy future is being underestimated, and underreported. If not yet reasons to be cheerful, then there are certainly reasons to be more optimistic.
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