Key message: The world still produces more workforce for fossil fuels than for renewable energy industries
A new study on energy transition in global higher education has been published by Energy Research & Social Science journal. In the article, the authors – Roman Vakulchuk and Indra Overland from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs[1] – assess how quickly global higher education is transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy in terms of educational content. The study is based on a review of 18,400 universities in 196 countries.
The study presents several alarming findings. The main result is that the world still produces more workforce for fossil fuels than for renewable energy industries. We found that 68% of the world’s energy educational degrees are focused on fossil fuels, and only 32% on renewable energy. At the current rate of change, renewable energy university degrees would reach 100% only by the year 2107 (see Figure A). The findings show that “the rapid adoption of renewable energy worldwide is not matched by changes in higher education, since universities continue to prioritise coal and petroleum studies.” Even though the number of educational programmes on renewable energy has grown over time, they are still outnumbered by fossil fuel-oriented programmes.
