The Untold Story Of COVID’s Dramatic Impact On Global Energy

The Untold Story Of COVID’s Dramatic Impact On Global Energy

The 2021 edition of the bp Statistical Review of World Energy was published last week, which means it's time for my annual commentary. This year's release is the 70th anniversary edition; as always the Review is a must-read for anyone interested in the world of energy. (Annual disclosure: I led the production of the Review for a dozen years"¦) The Review contains comprehensive, objective global data on every energy form as well as key minerals.[1] The focus of bp's analysis accompanying the Review this year validates the headlines we've read over the past year: 2020 saw a sharp decline in global energy demand (-4. 5%) and energy-related CO2 emissions (-6. 3%). (Though as chief economist Spencer Dale notes, that record decline in CO2 came at the expense of the world economy's worst contraction since the Great Depression.) One item that the Review does NOT contain is global energy production; it has data on total energy consumption, and production of every individual form of energy, but it does not aggregate that production data into a total energy production table. As I explained in last year's commentary, however, a simplifying assumption allows me to build my own total energy production table.[2] The