Target 7.2: Increase share of renewable energy
By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix
Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Why shareholder democracy is pivotal
Renewable sources supplied 17.9 percent of the energy the world used in 2022, counted where it is delivered to homes, vehicles and factories rather than as raw fuel burned to produce it. The IEA projects USD 2.2 trillion of clean energy investment in 2025 against USD 1.1 trillion for fossil fuels. The capital budgets of listed utilities, oil majors and independent power producers determine the mix. Corporate political influence is what blocks the shift. InfluenceMap documents oil and gas advocacy in Canada that led the federal government to withdraw climate regulations. Ceres reports more than two dozen companies lobbying Congress in December 2024 to preserve Inflation Reduction Act clean energy credits. Shareholder voting is already deployed. Forty-six climate lobbying resolutions were filed for 2022 proxies across oil and gas, utilities, consumer goods and technology, and a record 18 were withdrawn after companies agreed to act. Follow This resolutions at Shell drew 20 percent support in 2022 and 2023. As You Sow's shareholder resolutions at the Arizona utility APS preceded the company's 2020 pledge of 100 percent clean, carbon-free electricity by 2050, with 45 percent renewables by 2030. Corporate spending decides the mix and corporate lobbying is the obstacle, so owners can deliver most of this outcome.
How this was scoredPivotal
Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- World Energy Investment 2025, Executive summary, International Energy Agency, 2025
- The Oil & Gas Industry's Capture of Canada's Energy and Climate Policy, InfluenceMap, 2026-03
- Major businesses take to Capitol Hill in support of federal clean energy incentives, Ceres, 2024-12-04
- Shareholders Escalate Campaign Pressing Companies to 'Walk Their Talk' on Climate Lobbying, Ceres, 2022-03-14
- One-fifth of Shell shareholders maintain demand for emissions reductions to meet Paris by voting for Follow This climate resolution, Follow This, 2023-05-23
- APS Changes Course for 100% Clean Energy Future, As You Sow, 2020-01-22
6 campaigns on record
Set targets that bring the emissions from the products Shell sells down by 2030 in line with the Paris climate agreement, rather than leaving the work to 2050.
With Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management, Degroof Petercam Asset Management
Result: 20 percent in favor at the 2023 annual meeting, the same share the resolution drew in 2022
we found no documented change. Follow This reports that Shell instead signaled it might step back from its existing climate plans in the weeks after the vote
Report on how the company's own lobbying, and the lobbying of the trade groups it belongs to, lines up with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
Result: Withdrawn after a negotiated agreement
we found no documented change beyond the agreement Ceres reports
Report on how the company's own lobbying, and the lobbying of the trade groups it belongs to, lines up with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
Result: Withdrawn after a negotiated agreement
we found no documented change beyond the agreement Ceres reports
Report on how the company's own lobbying, and the lobbying of the trade groups it belongs to, lines up with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
Result: Withdrawn after a negotiated agreement
we found no documented change beyond the agreement Ceres reports
Report on how the company's own lobbying, and the lobbying of the trade groups it belongs to, lines up with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
Result: Withdrawn after the company agreed to disclose more about its lobbying
Amgen agreed to added disclosure of its lobbying, according to Ceres
Cut the company's reliance on fossil fuel generation and set out how it will move its Arizona utility to clean power.
Result: Withdrawn under agreements reached after filings in 2017 and again in 2019, so neither went to a vote
On January 22, 2020 the company committed to 100 percent clean, carbon-free electricity by 2050, a 65 percent clean energy mix and 45 percent renewables by 2030, and an end to all coal generation by 2031
APS Changes Course for 100% Clean Energy Future, As You Sow, 2020-01-22
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.