National governments are the most important contributors to global energy innovation. Their aggregated contributions indicate a lack of urgency, which undermines progress toward net-zero emissions by 2050.

The 34 countries covered by the Index make widely varying contributions to the global system. As such, their rankings frequently differ dramatically across subindices measuring diverse knowledge, market, and social factors.

Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom are the pacesetters in ITIF’s Global Energy Innovation Index.

Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, France, and Norway form a stable second tier of contributors behind the top four, while Japan, Austria, South Korea, Australia, the Czech Republic, and the United States are in the third tier.

The 2021 rankings are quite similar to those for 2016.

Together, the 34 national governments in the Index invested over $27 billion in clean energy R&D in the most recent year for which data are available—but as a share of their economies, this investment has not grown since 2015.

The flow of early-stage venture capital into clean energy start-ups, and their ability to exit via private equity buy-out, merger or acquisition, or IPO, are bright spots for the global energy innovation system.