Carbon emissions from the world’s power sector reportedly fell by 2% in 2019—the single largest drop in electrical CO2 production since 1990.
According to a new report from environmental think tank Ember, the historic decline in CO2 emissions was largely caused by Europe and the US shifting away from coal, resulting in a global 3% decline in coal-fired power generation, which is also the largest drop in 30 years.
Coal usage in Europe declined by 24% in favor of wind and solar power while coal declined in the US by 16% in favor of natural gas. Collectively, this means that Europe’s coal usage has been almost halved by 43% since 2007.
“The global decline of coal and power sector emissions is good news for the climate but governments have to dramatically accelerate the electricity transition so that global coal generation collapses throughout the 2020s,” says Ember Electrical Analyst Dave Jones. “To switch from coal into gas is just swapping one fossil fuel for another. The cheapest and quickest way to end coal generation is through a rapid roll-out of wind and solar.”
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This year’s edition of Ember’s annual emissions report uses data representing electrical generation and demand across 217 countries, covering 85% of the world’s electricity production. The full report is free for public access.
The report’s key findings go on to say: “Wind and solar generation rose by 15% in 2019, generating 8% of the world’s electricity. Compound growth rate of 15% of wind and solar generation is needed every year to meet the Paris climate agreement. This was achieved in 2019 and lower prices provide hope it can be sustained.
“However, maintaining this high growth rate as volumes scale up will require a concerted effort from all regions.”
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The report goes hand-in-hand with research published by the International Energy Agency last month outlining how global CO2 emissions had actually defied expectations by plateauing in 2019 thanks to a rise in renewable power sources and declining coal usage.
The United States recorded the largest emissions decline on a country basis, with a fall of 140 million tons, or 2.9%. US emissions are now down by almost 1 gigaton from their peak in 2000.
Emissions in the European Union fell by 160 million tons, or 5%, in 2019 driven by reductions in the power sector. Natural gas produced more electricity than coal for the first time ever, meanwhile wind-powered electricity nearly caught up with coal-fired electricity.
Japan’s emissions fell by 45 million tons, or around 4%—the fastest pace of decline since 2009, as output from recently restarted nuclear reactors increased.
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