Global spending on the energy transition reached USD 2.4 trillion in 2024, a record figure and roughly 20 per cent higher than the average of the previous two years. Of that total, around USD 807 billion went specifically into renewable energy, according to a new assessment released by IRENA and the Climate Policy Initiative.
But the growth, isn’t as good as the headline number suggests. Investment in renewables rose 7.3 per cent over the year — nowhere near the 32 per cent jump seen in 2023.
Solar kept its lead by a long margin, drawing USD 554 billion, a rise of 49 per cent. Nearly all clean-energy investment — around 96 per cent goes into the power sector. The report adds that fossil-fuel spending inched higher too, despite renewables, grids and battery storage attracting more total funding.
Among this, one issue is impossible to miss: almost all of this investment is still concentrated in a handful of places. Close to 90 per cent of total energy-transition finance came from advanced economies and China, while most emerging and developing countries continued to struggle to access the capital they need.
Francesco La Camera, IRENA’s Director-General, said, “Investments in energy transition continue to grow but not at the pace needed to achieve the global goal of tripling renewable capacity by 2030. Funding for renewables is soaring but remains highly concentrated in the most advanced economies. As countries gather at COP30 to advance the ‘Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3 trillion’, scaling finance for emerging and developing countries is essential to make the transition truly inclusive and global.”
The report explains why this gap persists. Wealthier countries can rely on domestic financial systems to support the shift, while lower-income nations face high capital costs, limited fiscal space and underdeveloped financial markets. In 2023, almost half of global energy-transition investment was issued as debt — mostly at market rates — with equity making up most of the rest. Grants made up less than 1 per cent, raising concerns that existing debt stress could deepen.
Manufacturing tells a similar story. Between 2018 and 2024, China accounted for 80 per cent of global investment in factories for solar, wind, battery and hydrogen technologies. Although new manufacturing projects are beginning to appear in developing economies outside China, total investment in these facilities still fell 21 per cent last year to USD 102 billion, largely because spending on new solar PV factories dropped. Battery manufacturing was the exception: investment there almost doubled to USD 74 billion, helped by stronger demand from power grids, electric vehicles and data-centre growth.
The report concludes that deeper cooperation between countries — through foreign direct investment, joint ventures and technology sharing — will be essential if more emerging economies are to build their own clean-energy supply chains, with South–South collaboration expected to play a larger role.
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