IEA: CO2 Emissions in 2023

Global CO₂ emissions hit a new record high of 37.4 billion tonnes (Gt) from energy-related activity, growth of 1.1% in 2023, down only slightly from growth of 1.3% in 2022.The IEA is working to help the world understand the drivers behind our continued emissions growth. This report finds that total energy-related CO₂ emissions increased by 1.1% in 2023. Far from falling rapidly—as is required to meet the global climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement—CO₂ emissions reached a new record high of 37.4 Gt in 2023. This estimate is based on the IEA’s detailed, cutting-edge region-by-region and fuel-by-fuel analysis of the latest official national energy data, supplemented by data
on economic and weather conditions.

Executive Summary

• Global energy-related CO₂ emissions grew by 1.1% in 2023, increasing 410 million tonnes (Mt) to reach a new record high of 37.4 billion tonnes (Gt). This compares with an increase of 490 Mt in 2022 (1.3%). Emissions from coal accounted for more than 65% of the increase in 2023.
• The global shortfall in hydropower generation due to droughts drove up emissions by around 170 Mt. Without this effect, emissions from the global electricity sector would have fallen in 2023.
• Between 2019 and 2023, total energy-related emissions increased around 900 Mt. Without the growing deployment of five key clean energy technologies since 2019 - solar PV, wind, nuclear, heat pumps, and electric cars - the emissions growth would have been three times larger.
• Thanks to growing clean energy deployment, emissions are seeing a structural slowdown. In the decade to 2023, global emissions grew slightly more than 0.5% per year, the slowest rate since the Great Depression.
• Advanced economy GDP grew 1.7% but emissions fell 4.5%, a record decline outside of a recessionary period. Having fallen by 520 Mt in 2023, emissions are now back to their level of fifty years ago. Advanced economy coal demand, driven by evolutions in the G7, is back to the level of around 1900. The 2023 decline in advanced economy emissions was caused by a combination of structural and cyclical factors, including strong renewables deployment, coal-to-gas switching in the US, but also weaker industrial production in some countries, and milder weather.
• Emissions in China grew around 565 Mt in 2023, by far the largest increase globally and a continuation of China’s emissions-intensive economic growth in the post-pandemic period. However, China continued to dominate global clean energy additions. Cyclical effects, notably a historically bad hydro year, contributed about one-third of its emissions growth in 2023. Per capita emissions in China are now 15% higher than in advanced economies.
• In India, strong GDP growth drove up emissions by around 190 Mt. But a
  weak monsoon increased demand for electricity and cut hydro production,
  contributing around one-quarter of the increase in its total emissions in
  2023. Per capita emissions in India remain far below the world average.

SOURCE:

The IEA's CO2 Emissions in 2023: A new record high, but is there light at the end of the tunnel?, prepared by the Energy Modelling Office in the Directorate of Sustainability, Technology and Outlooks and published February, 2024 (24 pages).