Global carbon emissions from the power sector jumped to a record last year as the recovery from the pandemic boosted electricity demand and utilities burned more coal amid a gas crunch, think tank Ember said.
“We still haven’t reached that step where the increase in electricity demand is being met with clean electricity,” said Dave Jones, a global electricity analyst at Ember. “Therefore, fossil generation is increasing. And that has been predominantly coal.”
Ember’s analysis for 2021 includes data from 75 countries that make up about 93% of the world’s electricity generation. Solar and wind power generation grew a combined 17% in 2021, which also marked the first time that those sources accounted for at least 10% of global power generation. The total amount of electricity demand is growing too, and fossil fuels, particularly coal, saw a major rebound last year after dropping during the pandemic.-fired power generation last year rose more than 4% compared with 2019.
Much of the increase in coal power and emissions came from Asia, the data show. In Europe, the growth of new renewable capacity started to expensive gas plants, rather than coal ones, undermining the region’s plans to ditch the polluting fuel.