India Surges Ahead In Clean Electrification Race

In the sprawling debate over global energy futures, few topics stir as much passion—or as much confusion—as the transition from fossil fuels to clean electricity. Two recent reports, published on January 22, 2026, shine a spotlight on the world’s two most populous nations, India and China, and their divergent yet intertwined energy stories. The findings, reported by both California Globe and energy think tank Ember (as cited by Bloomberg News), offer a bracing reality check for policymakers and dreamers alike.

Let’s start with the hard numbers. In 2024, a staggering 82 percent of the world’s total energy supply still came from oil, natural gas, and coal, according to California Globe. The United States wasn’t far off that mark at 81 percent, while China clocked in at 82 percent, India at 88 percent, and African nations collectively at 90 percent. Despite decades of climate pledges and renewable investments, the world remains deeply wedded to fossil fuels.

But how much energy do people actually use? The disparities are eye-popping. The world consumed 604 exajoules (EJ) of energy in 2024. The U.S. alone gobbled up 96 EJ, which is 16 percent of the global total. That works out to an average American using 276 gigajoules (GJ) of energy per year. Compare that to China’s 113 GJ per person, India’s 25 GJ, and Africa’s mere 13 GJ per person per year. The chasm in energy lifestyles is as wide as the Pacific—and then some.

What would it take to bring the rest of the world even halfway to U.S. levels? The math is sobering. If every non-American on Earth consumed just half as much energy as the average American, global energy production would need to leap to 1,088 exajoules—almost double today’s output. Factor in a 50 percent reduction in U.S. per capita use, and the total still climbs to 1,136 exajoules. As California Globe bluntly put it, “doubling global energy production is the minimum target” if prosperity is to be shared more equitably.

This is where the optimism of green transition advocates collides with the gritty arithmetic of energy demand. The idea that the world can phase out fossil fuels by 2045 or 2050, while simultaneously doubling total output, simply doesn’t add up—at least not with current technologies. California Globe warns, “It is not possible to phase out fossil fuels by 2045 or 2050 given current and projected global energy demands; fossil fuel demand will increase for at least another generation.” The world, it seems, will be burning oil, coal, and gas for decades to come, no matter how fast solar panels and wind turbines spread.

Yet, if the global picture seems bleak, India’s recent trajectory offers a glimmer of hope—and a challenge to conventional wisdom. According to Ember’s latest report, India is electrifying its economy faster than China did at a similar stage of development, and it’s doing so with far less reliance on coal and oil per person. Adjusted for purchasing power, India’s per-capita income today is about $11,000, roughly where China stood in 2012. But while China’s industrial ascent was powered by a tidal wave of coal and oil, India is charting a different course.

“The orthodox narrative has been that emerging markets must follow the same path the West and China took—from biomass to fossil fuels and only then to clean energy,” Kingsmill Bond, strategist at Ember and one of the report’s authors, told Bloomberg News. “India shows that this is no longer inevitable.”

That’s not to say India has broken free from fossil fuels. Far from it. Coal remains the backbone of its power system, and the government is mulling plans that could double coal-fired capacity by 2047. Oil demand is rising rapidly, with India’s consumption growth expected to outpace China’s last year. But the broader trend is clear: as green electricity expands, fossil fuels are playing a smaller role per person than they once did in China.

India’s advantage? Timing, technology, and economic necessity. The country is benefiting from dramatically cheaper solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles—technologies that were prohibitively expensive when China began its own electrification drive more than a decade ago. In 2024, electric vehicles accounted for about 5 percent of new car sales in India. When China reached that same milestone, its per-capita oil consumption for road transport was around 60 percent higher than India’s is today. Bond argues that “India’s peak road-transport oil consumption per person is unlikely ever to reach Chinese levels.” That’s a big deal for emissions, energy security, and economic resilience.

There’s another twist. India imports more than 40 percent of its primary energy—coal, oil, and gas—racking up a fossil-fuel import bill of roughly $150 billion a year, according to the International Energy Agency. For a country eager to grow and achieve energy independence, that’s a crushing burden. “To grow and to have energy independence, India has to reduce that terrible burden,” Bond told Bloomberg News. “It needs other solutions.”

Enter the concept of the ‘electrostate’—a country that meets most of its energy needs through electricity, increasingly generated from clean sources, rather than domestically extracted fossil fuels. India may be the world’s first real contender for this title, though no nation has fully achieved it yet. As the costs of solar power, batteries, and electric vehicles keep falling, the advantages of electrification grow even more compelling for countries poorer than India today.

But, as always, there are caveats. India’s leap into clean electricity comes with a strategic vulnerability: China’s dominance of the global electricity technology supply chain. From rare earths to specialized manufacturing equipment, Beijing holds the keys. This month, Reliance Industries, one of India’s industrial giants, paused plans to manufacture lithium-ion battery cells after failing to secure key equipment from China. It’s a stark reminder that energy independence isn’t just about what you burn, but who controls the tools you need to build the future.

Back in California, policymakers are wrestling with their own energy paradox. The state is a global leader in promoting alternative energy, but as California Globe notes, fossil fuels will remain the primary energy source for decades—statewide, nationally, and globally. The article argues that California could set a different example by encouraging all forms of energy to compete, pioneering new technologies while also demonstrating the cleanest ways to manage fossil fuels. Advanced hybrid cars could compete with EVs, natural gas power plants could be retrofitted to achieve efficiencies of 70 percent or more, and methane leakage could be eliminated through careful depletion of reserves. “Fossil fuel isn’t going anywhere,” the article concludes, at least not soon.

In the end, the world’s energy story is a tale of contradictions—a race between innovation and inertia, ambition and arithmetic. India’s rapid electrification shows what’s possible when technology and necessity align, but the global appetite for energy, and the realities of supply chains and infrastructure, mean that fossil fuels are likely to cast a long shadow for generations to come. The challenge, and the opportunity, is to make that shadow shorter every year.