CO2 up as global energy demand soars
(CNS): The world consumed record levels of energy last year, pushing up CO2 emissions to alarming levels, despite mounting evidence of its links to climate change. A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), released Monday, reveals that global energy use in 2018 increased at nearly twice the average rate of growth since 2010, growing by 2.3%, driven by a buoyant economy and higher heating and cooling needs in parts of the world. Demand for all fuels increased, with natural gas leading the field. Fossil fuels in general made up nearly 70% of the growth.
While renewables also grew, that growth was not fast enough to meet the world-wide demand. Despite the increasingly dire warnings about climate change and the challenges already presented by the increase in extreme weather events and persistent droughts, CO2 emissions increased to 33.1 Gt CO2, up 1.7% and the highest rate of growth since 2013.
“We have seen an extraordinary increase in global energy demand in 2018, growing at its fastest pace this decade,” said Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, in a press release. “Despite major growth in renewables, global emissions are still rising, demonstrating once again that more urgent action is needed on all fronts — developing all clean energy solutions, curbing emissions, improving efficiency, and spurring investments and innovation, including in carbon capture, utilization and storage.”
The report found coal-fired power continues to be the single largest emitter, accounting for 30% of all energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. While China, India and the United States accounted for 85% of the net increase in emissions, emissions declined in Germany, Japan, Mexico, France and the United Kingdom.
For the first time, the agency had assessed the impact of fossil fuel use on global temperature increases, and confirmed that coal was the single largest source of global temperature increase. CO2 from coal combustion was responsible for over 0.3°C of the 1°C increase in average annual surface temperatures around the world, above pre-industrial levels.
“The global average annual concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere averaged 407.4 ppm in 2018, up 2.4 ppm since 2017. This is a major increase from pre-industrial levels, which ranged between 180 and 280 ppm.”
Climate change itself is also pushing up energy demand. The report noted how average winter and summer temperatures in some regions approached or exceeded historical records, causing consumers to use more power for heating, but more significantly, hotter summer temperatures pushing up the demand for cooling.
The use of renewables grew by over 4%, the fastest pace this decade. Solar PV, hydro-power and wind-power each accounted for about a third of the growth, with bioenergy accounting for most of the rest. Renewables covered almost 45% of the world’s electricity generation growth, now accounting for over 25% of global power output.
The report also highlighted problems with energy efficiency around the world. Although rates improved last year, the rate of improvement was lower than in recent years and the third year in succession where the improvement rate for energy efficiency slowed.
Category: Local News
I always wonder how renewables work in that in order to make them you end up using a lot of traditional fuels. Think about all that mining and transport…would like to see a study on that just to know how green it is or isnt.
zzzzzzzz…one degree above pre-industrial…zzzzzzzzz
in your conspiracy filled world…why would bureaucrats want to tax an econony to such an extent?…taxes are bad for any ecnonomy.
and why is the world of science in a conspiracy with government bureaucrats????
next you will talking about the saucer people and reverse vampires…….zzzzzzz
this is a response to 2.17
Do you know there is a carbon tax on every form of fossil fuels? Every time you drive your car, every time you book a flight, every time you buy a piece of lettuce you pay carbon taxes. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a fact. These taxes amount to Trillions globally. 319Billion (Much more now, this is a 2017 figure) spent on global warming “research” in the US alone! That’s only a fraction of the entire carbon tax revenue. Wake up pigeon.
“Why would beaurocrats want to tax…” Seriously?
but as the compass says…we are only small so we can’t make any difference….zzzz
to have a national newsppaer to say something that ignorant in 2019 is staggering…
I would imagine you are often staggering.
Yes very *Alarming*. Can’t you see all that smoke in that gloomy picture?
Interestingly though……. Co2 levels always lags temperature increases by 200 to 400 years. This means that *first* temperature rises, THEN, Co2 levels increases 200-400 years later (as much as 700 years later). So the assertion that rising Co2 level *causes* temperature rises is seriously flawed.
And during the last ice age, Co2 levels were roughly 800 percent higher than they are today.
But for now play it safe and keep paying those (Trillions) in carbon taxes so the bureaucrats can fix this atmosphere and global temperatures to the _correct_ temperature.
in science we trust. not in your youtube research…
Yes, don’t let facts get in the way of your leftist worldview.
you lost the argument once you said ‘leftist’
Oh whatever
All talk and not a slither of sources. Even if you did look it’d be hard fetched to find something that isn’t a blog written by some neckbeard or some ultra-right focusing on profits more so than the continuation of human life.
Tell you what… if we do nothing about our energy production and you’re right, we as a society won’t have changed how we produce energy and will continue to use 150 year old technology. Say we do something though.. and you’re still right, we will develop new forms of energy production that is actually modern and up to date and isn’t futuristic technology something you and I both want to see? Or, do you want to just continue living the smog life, coughing on the sulphates emitted by cars amongst other machine we use that focus on 150 year old tech. I don’t know about you but I’d be pretty excited to buy a car I never have to fill up with gas.
150 year old technology…. You k now what else is 150 technology? Electricity!
THERE IS _NOTHING_ MORE PRACTICAL AT THIS TIME – PERIOD
Are you going to fly passenger plannes or cargo planes with solar, or wind, or geothermic or nuclear? NO, Are you going to have solar power semi-tucks to deliver food across the world? Or run heavy equipment to build buildings? NO, Trains? Not all can be electric, and HOW are you generating that electricity ?
Do you want to drive a car in countries like the US across the nation that you have to wait 8 hour to recharge? (Likely using a carbon based fuel as a convertor BTW) Battery technology has serious flaws, nor can you produce enough of them. The materials in them are extremely limited comparatively to fossil fuels
Unless you are prepared to make the entire world nuclear and generate hydrogen from that source, you are stuck with fossil fuel. Wishing it wasn’t so and expecting transportation to change based on some sci-fi concepts is incredibly foolish. And imposing taxes to fund bureaucrats and leftist websites to continually feed you you a stream of doomsday scenarios will not change this FACT.
Do you see any of these leftists changing their lifestyles to lower *their* carbon footprint? Look no further than Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and her gas guzzling SUV as she’s pushing to moronic Green New Deal.
“Are you going to fly passenger plannes or cargo planes with solar, or wind, or geothermic or nuclear? NO, Are you going to have solar power semi-tucks to deliver food across the world? Or run heavy equipment to build buildings? NO, Trains? Not all can be electric, and HOW are you generating that electricity ?”
While we’re not able to produce enough thrust from renewable sources to power aircraft I can agree with your point there. Electrical generation can be done from various sources with the safest, most reliable form being nuclear. However, with the fear mongering of most nuclear tech and that unecessary red-tape behind construction we still use 50 year old nuclear reactors when we have much safer ways to product nuclear energy as-well as dispose of it. Hell, even the deaths caused by nuclear in total is minute to that caused by coal. It’s a wonder why the american navy uses nuclear reactors in even their newly constructed ships? oh how dangerous it must to continue to use it right?
“Do you want to drive a car in countries like the US across the nation that you have to wait 8 hour to recharge? (Likely using a carbon based fuel as a convertor BTW) Battery technology has serious flaws, nor can you produce enough of them. The materials in them are extremely limited comparatively to fossil fuels”
Tesla has already released superchargers cable of 250Kw charging, able to charge their model 3 variant in as little as 30 minutes. While that isn’t as fast as gas it certainly isn’t the 8 hour crap your boasting. Please list the SERIOUS flaws that battery tech besides capacity and degradation, as well as where you saw that we can’t produce enough of them. Toyota seems to be doing fine with their prius and they’ve sold millions, Tesla as-well.
“Unless you are prepared to make the entire world nuclear and generate hydrogen from that source, you are stuck with fossil fuel. Wishing it wasn’t so and expecting transportation to change based on some sci-fi concepts is incredibly foolish. And imposing taxes to fund bureaucrats and leftist websites to continually feed you you a stream of doomsday scenarios will not change this FACT.”
Nuclear reactors produce electricity.. where’d you get hydrogen from? All power station harness thermal energy to produce electricity, what are you on about? I don’t expect nothing to happen in an instant, I’m hoping that those in power can make a change in the way we produce power, the way our forms of transport consume power. None of the methods we have now our sci-fi and they can all be applied at home, the work place, your car and producing the power for all of these. if taxes aren’t an option you approve how best can we get an individual to help reduce his/her footprint.
“Do you see any of these leftists changing their lifestyles to lower *their* carbon footprint? Look no further than Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and her gas guzzling SUV as she’s pushing to moronic Green New Deal”
You mean the SUV provided to her by the US government for her role, which she’s driven in? A protected vehicle for her safety ? She can’t exactly tell the powers that be to provide her with a say.. Prius to get her to the represenative’s office.
Carbon footprint you say? Surely you mus be talkin bout my old black dutty foot?
Feeding the troll, but on your figures the CO2 levels during the last ice age (800x more than today), puts the CO2 levels as over 3 times the lethal concentration to mammals.
Please try to think your lies out a bit more