The title is quite misleading, because the report shows a growth in generation using fossil fuel. It only decreased proportionally, but not in absolute values.
The weird graph in the report shows the increase of 135TWh:
2023 marked another major leap forward in reducing the CO2 intensity of global power generation, reaching a new record low of 480 gCO2/kWh, down 1.2% from 486 gCO2/kWh in 2022, as the share of clean sources reached a record high. However, absolute fossil generation increased 135 TWh (+0.8%) to meet the remainder of demand growth not met by clean sources, with small increases in coal and gas. As a result, global emissions rose by 1% (+135 million tonnes of CO2) in 2023, reaching 14,153 million tonnes of CO2 – a record high.
With our ever-increasing energy demands, it will be very hard to win a race to create more renewable production at a higher rate than our increase of demand. IMO, this path has long been proven to be unviable. We should be working on reducing our energy consumption, both directly and indirectly, by reducing consumption of industrialized goods. This is the only way I can see we actually moving out from fossil fuels.
The rate of renewable construction however is still skyrocketing, which is why in a few years it is expected to not only be replacing new generation but quickly replacing existing generation as well. Hence why gobal carbon emissions are expected to peak sometime this or next year.
More to the point, even if all industry stoped and we ignored that the same industry is responsible for making all the replacements for fossil equipment, we would still be seeing vast increases in electricity consumption, as sectors that are currently run almost entirely fossil fuels like heating and transportation moved from fossil fuels to electricity.
While electric technologies like heat pumps and motors are thankfully twice to several times more energy efficient than furnaces, boilers, and engines, they still use vast quantities of electricity, and given that these sectors tend to be on par with if not significantly larger than the current electrical generation capacity, and as such replacing them with things that don’t inharently emit carbon will necessitate a vast increase in generation capacity.
If anything I’d think the idea that we can just improve the efficiency of things that emit carbon is what has long been proven unviable, as a more efficient furnace or gas car still inherently emits carbon while even a inefficient heat pump or metro does not.
we would still be seeing vast increases in electricity consumption, as sectors that are currently run almost entirely fossil fuels like heating and transportation moved from fossil fuels to electricity.
That’s a good point. It would be interesting to see a similar report for all forms of energy, not just electricity.
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