See what a high band reads like.

P1The bar chart shows the proportion of final energy consumption supplied by renewable sources in five countries in 2010 and 2020.

P2Overall, Iceland and Sweden had substantially higher renewable energy shares than the other three countries in both years, and all five nations increased their proportions over the decade. Iceland led throughout, while the USA had the lowest share in both years.

P3Iceland's renewable share stood at 76% in 2010 and rose to 82.9% by 2020. Sweden also recorded a considerable increase, from 44.7% to 57.8%, maintaining second place throughout. Germany more than offset its relatively low starting point by rising from 11.6% to 18.5%, while China grew from 12.3% to 14.9%, a more modest gain that nonetheless kept it just ahead of Germany in 2010, though Germany surpassed China by 2020.

P4The USA had the lowest share in both years, increasing from 7.4% to 11%, a rise of 3.6 percentage points. By contrast, Sweden's gain of 13.1 percentage points was the largest absolute increase among the five countries. The gap between Iceland and the USA widened marginally from 68.6 percentage points in 2010 to 71.9 percentage points in 2020, reflecting a continuing disparity between the two extremes despite universal growth.