Carbon emissions hit a record last year, but rapid growth in renewable energy kept the increase from being far bigger

Wind turbines spin in front of a coal-fired power plant.

Ina Fassbender/AFP

• Global carbon emissions rose in 2022 from an increase in air travel and coal power, a report found.
• A spike in clean power like solar and wind kept the growth in emissions from being worse.
• But emissions from fossil fuels are still too high, the International Energy Agency says.

Global carbon-dioxide emissions hit another record in 2022, but the increase wasn't as bad as it could have been because of the strong growth of solar and wind power, as well as other renewable-energy sources. 

The findings by the International Energy Agency underscore that even as the world continues to burn fossil fuels at an unsustainable level, the energy crisis sparked by Russia's war in Ukraine is likely to speed the shift to clean energy.

European countries that had relied on oil and gas from Russia are looking elsewhere for energy, and many are trying to step up the adoption of renewables.

But the head of the IEA said more needed to be done, especially by energy companies raking in windfall profits.

"International and national fossil fuel companies are making record revenues and need to take their share of responsibility, in line with their public pledges to meet climate goals," the IEA's executive director, Fatih Birol, said Thursday in a statement. "It's critical that they review their strategies to make sure they're aligned with meaningful emissions reductions."

Carbon emissions grew to 36.8 billion metric tons in 2022, nearly a 1% increase over 2021, mainly driven by more people hopping on planes and a wave of gas-to-coal switching in Asia because the energy crisis caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices soaring. 

Still, the growth of solar, wind, electric vehicles, and heat pumps helped prevent a massive spike in emissions. Without the increase in clean technologies, the year-over-year increase in energy-related emissions would have been almost triple, the report found. Renewables accounted for 90% of the global growth in the supply of electricity, and one in every seven cars sold globally last year was electric, the IEA said.

Extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and intense because of the climate crisis, are also influencing emissions, particularly droughts and heat waves. 

In the US, summer heat waves led to major spikes in electricity demand met by natural gas, the IEA found. In Europe, there was the opposite effect because of a mild winter, and the bloc's emissions fell. 

Meanwhile, China's emissions stayed flat in 2022 compared with previous years because industrial production slowed amid strict COVID-19 policies.

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