What’s Happening? Global Emissions Are Still Rising

What’s Happening? Global Emissions Are Still Rising

Extracting, refining and burning fossil fuels have led to enormous greenhouse gas emissions, over 50 ... [+] billion tons/year. Bringing this down to zero by 2050 will take more than wishful thinking. After the world has spent a few trillion dollars over the last ten years trying to decarbonize, $503 billion in 2020 alone, carbon emissions are still increasing. Even as the pandemic slowed that growth for a bit during 2020-2021, emissions in 2022-2023 will break all records and exceed 55 billion tons/year by more than a little. According to the International Energy Agency, global electricity demand will increase by 5% in 2021 and 4% in 2022, and half of this increase will be from fossil fuels, particularly new coal in the developing world. CO2 emissions from the power sector will rise to record levels in 2022, exceeding 34 billion tons. After dropping 4% in 2020, nuclear power generation is forecast to grow, but only by 1% in 2021. This is one important reason why carbon emissions will grow so much during this period. Renewable electricity generation, which grew 7% in 2020, will continue to rise, but cannot keep up with increasing demand, not by half. Until growth in renewables