Electricity generation from renewable sources increased by almost 90% over 2010‑2020, increasing the overall low-carbon share by almost 10 percentage points, while electricity demand decreased, with all of the drop taking place from 2019 to 2020. This contributed to the decarbonisation of power generation, which also saw a large coal-to-gas substitution, with gas increasing in share to become (marginally) larger than all low-carbon sources combined and twice as large as coal. As coal-fired generation more than halved, the overall CO2 intensity decreased by one-third over 2010‑2020, to around 350 g CO2/kWh in 2020.
The Covid‑19 recovery measures, the updated Nationally Determined Contribution targets, the 100% carbon-free electricity targets in several states, the minimum energy performance standards, and the support to further deployment of EVs are some of the main policies aimed at increasing electrification of final uses and the decarbonisation of power generation. To achieve these goals, a marked change of direction is needed for electrification, while stepping up the efforts made over the past decade for the decarbonisation of power generation. In the transport sector, the space-for-action trend is in line with the efforts seen in the past decade as biofuels contributed significantly to reduce the potential, although electricity will need to increase significantly in the future years to maintain this trend.