We have now reached a point where we cannot get through an average week without being confronted by cleverly framed, sensational news stories. For me, the best solution has been to try to stay informed about what is really going on so that I can separate the wheat from the chaff. For example, when Donald Trump recently proposed solving the energy hunger of the artificial intelligence industry by connecting server farms to revived and extended coal-fired power plants in the United States, I saw this "steampunk" idea not only saw the nuclear power plant construction visions of the second half of last year sink, but also revealed the US president's openly stated ambition to reverse "the course of events so far."
In this case, by "the way things have been going so far," I mean the green transition process, which has seen US coal consumption fall from its historic peak in 2010—when it accounted for more than 46 percent of electricity generation—to just 16 percent by 2024. In other words, the megatrend whereby the continuous and rapid spread of clean energy technologies is now significantly curbing the growth of carbon dioxide emissions. This latter statement was clearly articulated in a recent analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA): thanks to this, 2.6 Gt of carbon dioxide emissions could be avoided in 2024, which is nearly 7 percent of annual emissions. Hopefully, this will get even better, and of course this shift in internal production in favor of renewables is by no means a green breakthrough in itself, as the big picture still shows that last year, global carbon dioxide emissions reached a new historic high of 37.8 Gt.
But at least there is something that is factually visible and gives cause for optimism. The IEA's annual global energy review published in March is not just about the carbon footprint. It is preceded by six chapters of detailed explanations of how global energy demand grew in each segment last year. Overall, energy demand grew faster than the 1.3 percent annual average for the previous decade, at a rate of 2.2 percent per year, for a number of reasons, resulting in higher demand for all energy sources.
However, the growth in global carbon dioxide emissions followed a much flatter growth curve than the growth in global energy demand: CO2 emissions fell from an annual average of 1.2% in the previous period to 0.8% in 2024, with the majority of this decline not concentrated in areas with growing demand peaks. As the accompanying figure shows, only a quarter of last year's global energy demand growth was covered by oil and coal, while almost one and a half times that amount came from increased production from renewable energy sources. That's just the way it is, as NBC has reported: there is no Trump who can reverse this process.
And that's exactly how it should be!
This article was first published on the 6th May, by Levente Tóth, CEO of mitigia, on their personal LinkedIn profile.
Cover picture: Nicholas Doherty, Unsplash