Carbon Emissions Reached Record High in 2023, IEA Says

Energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide hit a record high in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report on Friday. The IEA analysis showed that it rose by 410 million tonnes, or 1.1%, in 2023 to 37.4 billion tonnes. From a report: "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," the IEA said. However, the Paris-based watchdog also found clean energy including wind and solar energy, as well as electric vehicles, had helped to offset the impact of the continued burning of coal and oil growth, which was 1.3% in 2022.

The reopening of China's economy after the COVID-19 pandemic and a recovery in the aviation sector contributed to an overall rise, the IEA said in its report. Severe droughts last year in China, the United States, India, and other countries hampered hydropower production. It accounted for around 40% of the rise in emissions or 170 million tonnes of CO2. "Without this effect, emissions from the global electricity sector would have fallen in 2023," the IEA said. Carbon dioxide emissions from coal accounted for the remaining increase. The IEA analysis showed that 2023 was the first year in which at least half of electricity generation in industrialized countries came from low-emission sources such as renewable energy and nuclear power. Energy-related emissions in the United States fell by 4.1%, and 9% in the European Union, driven by a surge in renewable power generation.

Re:

[NomDeAlias]

It was over when it became endemic that doesn't mean no one ever gets sick or dies. It is now routine and mostly treatable. Do you think people weren't getting sick and dying from viruses before 2019?

Re:

[geekmux]

Sure, the economy has recovered..

Speaking of don’t look up, care to elaborate as to which planet you’re on? Sure as fuck ain’t Earth you’re describing here. Says a lot about your whining.

How the US did

[DrMrLordX]

https://rhg.com/research/us-gr... [rhg.com]

Overall emissions estimated to be down by 1.9%.

Maybe a little later

[Fons_de_spons]

Hmmm, maybe we should do something about this... Nah, too much other urgent problems. We'll get to it when it really gets out of hand.

Re:

[NomDeAlias]

Who is we? Many nations have reduced emissions.

Re: CO2 is a giant nothing burger

[Fons_de_spons]

The general broad consensus is that this is real. It is also very human to deny bad news. Making them see reality is a long and tedious process.

Nobody Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

During the lockdowns, when working from home, my carbon footprint from driving went down 90% (34 km one way, 30 minute drive). Imagine the carbon implications of a simple law mandating that any job that can be done remotely is done so. But nobody gives a shit. The only thing we care about is making more money, monopolizing and milking the lithium train.

Carbon tax

[Atmchicago]

Even better is a carbon tax. If people hate the idea of a tax then make it a carbon dividend, in which the proceeds are re-distributed as an annual check. Everyone is paid out the same amount, but some people pay in more, especially those flying around in private jets.

Re: Nobody Cares

[Fons_de_spons]

Uhm, your car driving emmisions dropped, what about the heating or AC emissions of your home? Those require a lot of energy.

Well that settles it

[Stonent1]

My plans are working perfectly!

Re:

[Firethorn]

While I agree that we need nuclear, saying that they "have done nothing" does them a disservice. Plus, "growing exponentially" means that they might not have done enough YET, but as long as "exponential" holds long enough, it'll do so eventually.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

Except solar and wind are intermittent. So there are limits to how much they can grow. Adding more solar panels will never produce a kWh at night. Adding more wind turbines will never produce a kWh when the wind isn't blowing.

Re:

[smooth wombat]

In other words, because there are minor issues with them working 100% of the time, they shouldn't be used. Got it.

Sounds like vaccines. If a vaccine isn't 100% effective it's worthless and should never be used.

Perhaps we should apply this standard to other things such as cell phones, computers, roads, and airplanes. None of them are 100% effective at being used so we shouldn't use them.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

They're not minor issues, they're fundamental. Solar has a capacity factor around 25%. Wind is around 35%.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

Continuing off of that point. Nuclear has a capacity factor near 95%+. Solar is at 25%, wind is at 35%.

Wouldn't you rather take a vaccine with a 95%+ effectiveness rating versus one with 25% or 35%?

We failed to decarbonize because we picked the 25% and 35% options.

Re:

[MacMann]

You could do the 25% option a few times and the 35% option a couple as well and have them done this year.
Or you could spend twice as much and wait 10 years for the 95% vaccine. Hope you weren't in a hurry or on a budget. And didn't die in the meantime waiting...

That's a false dichotomy, we don't have to pick one or the other as we can do both. Also, it's not like the problem of energy supplies will be solved for all time with the construction of wind and solar power production because things wear out. We can put up windmills in a matter of months but in 25 years we will need to replace them as they'd have worn out by then. We can spend 10 years building a nuclear power plant but once done we can expect that plant to keep operating for 80 years. We know that nu

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

No you can't dumbass. That's the entire point. You can add 100000000x solar panels and they still will never work at night. By the way the costs for electrical storage and for electrical transmission for a renewables grid are orders or magnitude greater than a nuclear baseload. By the way there are zero examples of a country deep decarbonize with wind and solar. There are examples of nuclear.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

12 hours of storage to get through a windless night is more expensive than a nuclear baseload. It's also slower.

Re:

[Barsteward]

Slower? electrons produced by nuclear are faster than electrons from storage? Nuclear doesn't produce when its shut down for weeks for maintenance and/or refuelling or the cooling waters are too hot, frozen or not enough during a drought
. When maintenance costs get too high or profits too low, the companies owning them start to disown them and end up being subsidised by the tax payer. [eia.gov]

Nothing is perfect, not even nuclear. Renewables can produce 10+years of power while a nuclear plant overrunning its b

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

Construction time is slower for storage. Yes much slower. Dumbass. And nuclear has a 95% capacity factor dumbass.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

France proved it works dumbass.

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

Maybe for hydro storage, but there are various other storage systems that can even use existing structures. And given the usual delays for nuclear plants probably not even for hydro.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

Battery storage too. We are building a handful of minutes of storage annually, and we need 12 hours to multiple days. The amount required for a 100% renewable grid is huge. It is so large that it will never end up being built, and we will just continue to burn fossil fuels. Unless of course we build nuclear to actually stop the usage of fossil fuels on the grid.

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

Nothing but bullshit from you.

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

Until there's a drought. Or a flood. Or corrosion. Or a strike. Or Russia no longer sells cheap Uranium.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

Nope. Just for the US we need 5.4 TWh's of storage for just 12 hours. That's a windless night. Seasonal requirements are significantly greater.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

Palo Alto is in the middle of the desert in Arizona. If nuclear can work there it can work anywhere. Also the largest producers of Uranium ore are Kazakhstan, Australia, Namibia, and Canada--not Russia. Why are antinuclear nutters so stupid? Or are they just evil?

Re:

[Zumbs]

At any given point in time, it is day on half the planet. So, solar power can work by night, because it is always day somewhere else. I realize that moving extreme amounts of electricity over 1000s of km is difficult in itself, not to mention the huge headaches from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

It is certainly both a hard and expensive problem to solve, but I don't have the engineering insight to compare it to construction of enough nuclear power plants along with resource extraction to power the global

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

I can tell you don't ave any engineering insights since your solution was to build a world wide super grid. That's fucking stupid.

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

Sure, until you have to shut down most of your reactors all at the same time. Where are you or France gonna get your electricity from then?

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

LOL. Germany gets their energy from coal. So eat shit you antinuclear fucktard.

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

And France gets its electricity from Germany, you moron.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

Electricity maps says France gets most of the energy from France.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nukes are too slow to build, too expensive to build, run and decommission, uninsurable and produce expensive power, thats why nobody wants nukes.

Re:

[Kernel Kurtz]

This is why we don't care. Since you have it all solved, just carry on. We will sit back and watch.

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

When nuclear was growing exponentially, so did emissions. Thanks for proving nuclear doesn't work.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

The largest decrease in emissions in world history was when France built their nuclear grid. Eat shit fuck tard

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

Liar. France started its first NPP in 1956. France's CO2 emissions for that year were 268.5 million tonnes. 2022 it was 297.53 million tonnes. Up more than 10%. According to your own rules nuclear is useless. Deal with it.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

The French nuclear plan, aka the Messmer Plan, began in 1973. It was completed in the 80's. Today French electricity is at 53 g CO2 per kWh. Compare that to the 400 Germany is at after spending 500 billion euros on renewables. Eat shit fucktard.

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

Liar.

Re:

[atomicalgebra]

Nope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France [wikipedia.org]. Also electricity maps for the carbon intensity of French and German electricity.

Well on track for 1990

[pitch2cv]

And we're supposed to be back at 1990 levels of emissions in a couple years to avoid a total global disaster by the second half of the century, right.
Heya folks, that's the other way. Yet we're not even decelerating, let alone turning around. So far so good. /s

Re: Well on track for 1990

[Fons_de_spons]

I teach in high-school. We had a guest speaker talking about durability and food. Kids were 13 years old. She asked who was pessimistic about the future of humanity. More than half of my class raised their finger. I was shocked. I talked to some kids afterwards. They really think that it is going to get very ugly in a few decades. Imagine the impact this has on the decisions they make.

You had an answer.

[geekmux]

Oh emissions are up after we allowed Greed to corruptly attack WFH after it was validated for 2+ years? Here’s a thought to your growing emissions problem; stop fucking forcing people to pollute their way back into an office they made pointless years ago.

Cant have it both ways, Green Hypocrite.

(raises left butt cheek)

[Press2ToContinue]

(emits methane)

Re: (raises left butt cheek)

[Fons_de_spons]

In industry, they burn waste methane. If we are serious about the environment, we may need to design underpants 2.0. Musk? Tim? Taking notes?

Re: And?

[Fons_de_spons]

You need to keep up. A lot of climate warming denialists already switched to "sure it is heating up, but there is nothing we can do about it, let nature figure it out."

OMG

[groobly]

OMG, I'm going to stop eating food right now to help.

Clearly Visible

[Malibee]

The record high, as well as the dip in emissions from lockdowns in 2020 are clearly visible in the measured CO2 levels (https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.png) ...oh wait, they don't even register, lol