Energy emissions hit record high demand for fossil fuels, report says

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Greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector hit a record high last year as demand for fossil fuels rose despite a big increase in renewable energy, according to a report that highlights the need to accelerate the green transition.

Energy emissions will rise by 2 percent in 2023 and exceed 40 gigatons of CO₂ equivalent for the first time, according to the World Energy Institute’s Statistical Review.

“Clean energy is still far from covering all the growth in demand,” said Nick Wayth, executive director of the London-based Energy Institute. “Probably, [energy] the transition hasn’t even started yet.”

Wayth highlighted “tremendous” progress in the transition to renewable electricity generation, which has grown by 13 percent from 2022 to a record 4,748 terawatt hours.

Fossil fuel consumption has accelerated in high-growth countries such as India, but there have been signs that demand has peaked in Europe, the US and other advanced economies.

The report, released on Thursday, said global primary energy consumption climbed 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 fell only slightly by 0.4 percentage points to 81.5 percent. Its share in 1995 was 86 percent.

The data highlights the challenges seven months after countries at the COP28 conference in Dubai set ambitious targets to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels in a bid to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Simon Virley, head of energy at KPMG, which co-authored the report, said “it is time to redouble our efforts to reduce carbon emissions and provide the finance and capacity to build more low-carbon energy sources in the global south”.

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 reliance on Russian gas and steadily wean itself away from coal following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It would take a major windfall for Europe to come back from this course,” Wayth said.

In the U.S., coal consumption fell 17 percent, helping push the nation’s total fossil fuel use down 2 percentage points to just over 80 percent of primary energy use.

Both economies “showed clear signs of peak or post-peak demand for fossil fuels,” Wayth said.

In contrast, India’s fossil fuel consumption rose 8 percent, with coal consumption outpacing the combined use of North America and Europe for the first time.

While the country was on track to meet its targets for building new renewable energy capacity, it was “far from enough to cover the overall increase in energy demand,” Wayth said.

In China, which accounts for about 30 percent of global energy, fossil fuel consumption climbed 6 percent to a new high of 139 EJ.

But the country is rapidly deploying renewables, with its 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 facilities.

Overall, the share of fossil fuels in China’s primary energy mix has been declining over the past ten years, reaching 81.6 percent in 2023.

Wayth said China’s rapid growth in renewables points to a “potential inflection point” where clean energy sources could meet electricity demand growth in 2027 and surpass it by 2030.

Oil and gas major BP published the Statistical Review of World Energy for more than 70 years before the Energy Institute, the body representing industry professionals, took over the report last year.

Data visualization by Clara Murray