2024 could mark the start of a decline in energy sector emissions – a milestone the International Energy Agency

(IEA) earlier predicted would be reached by the middle of the decade.

The energy sector is responsible for around three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions, and for the world

to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, overall emissions will need to peak.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says a net-zero emissions target is the only way to

limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the most

catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis.

Richer countries, however, are expected to reach net-zero emissions sooner.

The question of “how long”

In its World Energy Outlook 2023, the IEA noted that energy-related emissions will peak “by 2025″ due in part to the

energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It’s not a question of ‘if’; it’s a question of ‘if.’” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said: “It’s just a question of ‘how soon’

and the sooner it’s better for all of us The better.”

Analysis of the IEA’s own data by the Carbon Brief climate policy website found that the peak will occur two years earlier, in 2023.

The report also found that use of coal, oil and gas will peak before 2030 due to “unstoppable” growth in low-carbon technologies.

China Renewable Energy

As the world’s largest carbon emitter, China’s efforts to promote the growth of low-carbon technologies have also contributed

to the decline of the fossil fuel economy.

A poll released last month by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Helsinki-based think tank, suggested

that China’s own emissions will peak before 2030.

This comes despite the country approving dozens of new coal-fired power stations to meet growing energy demand.

China is one of 118 signatories to a global plan to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, agreed at the United Nations’ 28th

Conference of the Parties in Dubai in December.

Lauri Myllyvirta, chief analyst at CREA, said China’s emissions may enter a “structural decline” starting in 2024 as renewable

energy can meet new energy needs.

hottest year

In July 2023, global temperatures soared to their highest point on record, with sea surface temperatures also warming the ocean

to 0.51°C above the 1991-2020 average.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, said the Earth “has never

been this warm in the past 120,000 years.”

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) described 2023 as “record-breaking, deafening noise”.

With greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures hitting record highs, the World Meteorological Organization has warned

that extreme weather is leaving a “trail of

destruction and despair” and called for urgent global action.