Last year, global CO2 emissions were the highest in history

The increase in coal consumption last year increased CO2 emissions by 2 billion tonnes compared to the previous year. This is the largest annual increase in absolute terms so far.

In 2021, global CO2 emissions increased by 6 percent to the highest so far level of 36.3 billion tonnes, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports. According to the latest analysis, this is the result of the global economy rebounding from the crisis caused by the pandemic, using coal to fuel growth. In absolute terms, the 2 billion increase in CO2 emissions last year was the largest ever.

This increase exceeded an earlier decline caused by the epidemic. Several factors contributed to this. For example, the recovery of economies has been accompanied by an increase in gas prices which has led to a greater demand for coal. This was despite the fact that the production of electricity from renewable sources also recorded the largest increase in history, reaching 8,000 TWh.

China is largely responsible for the increase in CO2 emissions, where the amount of carbon dioxide produced in 2019-2021 increased by 750 million tonnes. It was the only country to record economic growth in both 2020 and 2021. More than 11.9 billion CO2 emitted in China accounts for 33 percent of world production of this gas.

(PAP)