Last year was the hottest on record, and the global average temperature for the first time approved the standard of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre -industrial hours. At the same time, the world’s energy demand rate increased sharply, which is almost double double over the past 10 -year average.
According to the results of a new report by the International Energy Agency, as it finds out, record heat and rapidly growing energy demand was closely connected.
The reason for this is that hot weather has increased the use of cooling technologies such as air conditioning. Power hungry devices put pressure on the grid, and many utility met with additional demand by burning coal and natural gas.
All of this was a disturbing feedback loop: A hot world needed more energy to cool homes and offices, and that was readily available was fossil fuel energy, which caused more emitting to heat the planet. This dynamic is exactly what many countries are hoping to stop through renewable energy development and construction of nuclear power plants.
Tell me another way, the IEA has estimated that if 2024 was not extremely seasoned – that is, if the weather was the same in 2024 as it was in 2023 – the global increase in carbon emissions for the year would be cut in half.
All this is not bad news: fast, the global economy is growing faster than carbon emissions. “If we want to find a silver layer, we see that the increase in emissions is constantly declining,” said the agency’s executive director, Fatiha Berwal.
We are taking this newsletter on Monday, instead of our usual Tuesday, to combine the IEA report. Here are five techies from last year’s energy trends. We will return to your inbox on Thursday.
Extreme heat helped to advance the global demand
The report states that an important factor that increased the global demand for electricity last year was extremely heat, especially in the United States, China and India. Last spring, New Delhi targets the temperature 126 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature in northern China broke the record.
The IEA found that all of these burden were the results. These effects of temperatures have increased the demand for electric and natural gas as a fifth.
Other power sectors increased by 2024. For example, data center capacity increased by 20 %, mostly in the US and China.
More coal burned as a result of high temperature
Renewable sources, such as solar and wind, are not so good in handling the uptake, suddenly in the demand for electricity during the heat waves. And still by 2030, it is not being deployed so fast to meet the global goals to meet all three by 2030.
To help people meet the immediate demand for electricity and to help people avoid heat pressure, some countries burned coal to help air conditioners and other cooling technologies.
As a result, the overall demand for coal increased by 1 % last year to reach the record. The agency’s report has found that the entire increase in coal demand can be explained at a lot of temperatures.
China has been the world’s largest global coal consumer, burning 40 % more coal than the rest of the world.
Global demand for electricity increased
In 2024, global energy demand increased by 2 %, which is double the average annual increase in the last 10 years.
This trend happened throughout the board: the demand for oil, natural gas, coal, renewable sources and nuclear all increased. The emerging and developing economies, led by China and India, were mostly focused on global growth.
This number also increased in the European Union, where energy demand has not increased massive since 2017, after which the subsequent recession is the discount of the year.
The result of all this development? Once again, in 2024, energy -related carbon emissions reached record. The IEA has estimated that the emissions of global carbon dioxide will increase over the next few years, then the current national policy commitments will decrease by 3 % by 2030.
According to the United Nations, global emissions will need to fall by 2030 by 2030.
Renewable sources and atoms are growing
About 80 80 % of the new power output came from renewable sources and nuclear for at least the year, and about one -third of the renewable sources of electricity.
Solar installations led the charge. In the United States, solar and wind power for the first time surpassed coal.
The report states that global carbon emissions last year would have been 7 % without clean technologies such as solar, air, nuclear, electric cars and hat pumps.
For the first time, oil reduced below 30 % of global energy demand
The increase in oil demand continued slowly last year, including factors, including buying consumer electric vehicles and digging gas.
Last year, the oil demand was practically all the growth: aviation and shipping, and plastics were calculated only two types.
Plastic oil has become an important part of companies’ growth projects as cars and trucks use electricity and other sectors less oil. Oil is a key material in plastic manufacturing.
Acute contamination EPA investigations look rapidly at risk
Under the Biden administration, the EPA took a strict approach to environmental implementation by investigating companies related to pollution, hazardous waste and other violations.
On the other hand, the Trump administration has said that it wants to move the EPA mission to air, water and land quality protection that “tries to buy a car, heated home and reduce the cost of running a business.”
As a result, the future of several long -running investigations seems uncertain. A new EPA memo offers the latest changes.
The EPA’s implementation measures say that the memo says since March 12, unless there is no health threat, the EPA’s implementation measures will no longer “shut down any phase of energy production”. It has also stopped that Biden began to resolve the pollution at the unpredictable high levels facing faulty communities. – Heroko Tabuchi
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