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Greenhouse gas emissions from energy reached a record high last year as demand for fossil fuels rose despite a surge in renewable energy, according to a report highlighting the need to accelerate the green transition.
According to the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, energy emissions will increase by 2 percent in 2023 to above 40 gigatons of CO₂ equivalent.
“Clean energy still doesn’t even meet the full growth in demand,” said Nick Wayth, CEO of the London-based Energy Institute. “Undoubtedly the [energy] the transition hasn’t even started yet.”
Wayth highlighted the “lopsided” progress in the shift to renewable electricity generation, which is up 13 percent from 2022 to a record 4,748 terawatt hours.
Fossil fuel use accelerated in fast-growing countries such as India, but there were signs that demand had peaked in Europe, the US and other advanced economies.
The report, published on Thursday, said global primary energy consumption rose by 2 percent to a record 620 exajoules – 1EJ is equivalent to about 170 million barrels of oil. The share of fossil fuels in the energy mix decreased only slightly by 0.4 percentage points to 81.5 percent. In 1995 this share was 86 percent.
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The data highlights the challenges seven months after countries set ambitious targets at the COP28 conference in Dubai to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, in a bid to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial level.
Simon Virley, head of energy at KPMG, who co-authored the report, said it was “time to redouble our efforts to reduce carbon emissions and provide financing and capacity to build more low-carbon energy sources in the global south.” to build”.
This year’s report shows that the share of fossil fuels in Europe’s energy mix has fallen below 70 percent for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, as the continent continues to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and strengthen itself following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. steadily phasing out coal.
“It would take a major unexpected change for Europe to reverse this course,” Wayth said.
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In the US, coal consumption fell by 17 percent, reducing the country’s total fossil fuel use by 2 percentage points to just over 80 percent of primary energy consumption.
Both economies “showed clear signs of a peak or post-peak in demand for fossil fuels,” Wayth said.
In contrast, India’s fossil fuel use rose 8 percent, with coal consumption overtaking combined use in North America and Europe for the first time.
Although the country was on track to meet its targets for building new renewable energy capacity, this was “far from sufficient to cover the overall increase in energy demand,” Wayth said.
In China, which accounts for about 30 percent of global energy, fossil fuel consumption rose 6 percent to a new high of 139 EJ.
However, the country is rapidly rolling out renewable energy, with new solar and wind capacity accounting for 63 percent of global installations last year. It is also home to half of the world’s large energy storage batteries.
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Overall, the share of fossil fuels in China’s primary energy mix has declined over the past decade, reaching 81.6 percent in 2023.
Wayth said the rapid growth of renewable energy sources in China pointed to a “potential turning point” that could see clean energy sources meet electricity demand growth in 2027 and exceed it by 2030.
Oil and gas giant BP published the Statistical Review of World Energy for more than 70 years before the Energy Institute, a body representing industry professionals, took over production of the report last year.
Data visualization by Clara Murray
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