Renewable energy accounted for around 18.9% of the European Union’s total energy production in 2022, a higher share than the global average, which, according to data from 2021, stood at 13.9%, Eurostat reported on Tuesday.

The data also shows that of the 14 non-EU countries that were responsible for at least 1% of global energy production, only Brazil (46.1%) is the country where renewables account for more than a quarter of total energy production. At the opposite end of the ranking, renewables were responsible for less than 0.1% of Saudi Arabia’s total energy production.

In 2022, the EU’s primary energy production stood at 24 billion Gigajoules (GJ), or 3.8% of the world’s total primary energy production, which was 627 billion GJ that year. China was the world’s largest primary energy producer in 2022, with a share of 20.4% of the total. The US was the other country responsible for more than a tenth (15.5%) of the world’s primary energy production. The US was followed by Russia, which was responsible for 9.7% of the world’s primary energy production, according to Agerpres.

Between 2000 and 2022, the EU’s share of world primary energy production decreased by one percentage point. Over the same period, the US share fell by 2.6 points, while the shares of Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Norway saw larger declines than the EU. In contrast, China’s share of world primary energy production grew rapidly, by 12.5 points. Indonesia, India and Brazil also saw increases of at least one percentage point.

In 2022, the EU imported 54 billion GJ of energy equivalent, while its exports stood at 18 billion GJ. These figures represent 22.9% and 7.5% of world energy trade, respectively.