Carbon emissions from energy production around the world hit a new record high last year, but they rose less than expected because of renewables, according to the International Energy Agency.
Global energy-related carbon emissions rose by less than one percent in 2022, but they are still on an unsustainable growth trajectory, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said in a new report released Thursday
An increase in the use of renewable energy helped avoid what was feared to be a massive jump in emissions from a surge in coal use due to the global energy crisis
"Without clean energy, the growth in CO2 emissions would have been nearly three times as high," IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement.
“However, we still see emissions growing from fossil fuels, hindering efforts to meet the world’s climate targets.
"International and national fossil fuel companies are making record revenues and need to take their share of responsibility, in line with their public pledges to meet climate goals."
Energy-related emissions, which account for more than three quarters of the total and are the cause of human-driven global warming, went up 0.9 percent in 2022.
They put an additional 321 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, bringing the total to more than 36.8 billion tonnes, according to the watchdog.
Extreme weather events intensified the world’s use of fossil fuels, with droughts reducing the amount of water available for hydropower, and heat waves driving up demand for electricity.
Wind, solar up in Europe
The IEA said electricity generation from wind and solar power exceeded that of gas or nuclear in Europe for the first time in 2022. And China’s strict Covid-19 measures and weak economic growth also contributed to the drop in global emissions.
However, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels still continued to increase, with emissions from coal growing 1.6 percent in 2022, slightly less than the year before, but far exceeding the average growth rate of coal emissions during the past decade.
This was due to the global energy crisis sparked by Russia cutting back on back natural gas deliveries to Europe following international sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
To compensate the drop in natural gas, many European and Asian countries switched to lower cost coal-fired power plants.
The fastest increase in emissions came from oil, at 2.5 percent, about half of which came from the aviation sector, driven by the post-Covid rebound in air traffic – though they still remain below pre-pandemic levels.
(with wires)
