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Greenhouse gas emissions rose 0.8% in 2022.
Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images
The growth of renewable energy projects hasn’t eaten enough into global fossil fuel demand to bend the curve on carbon emissions, according to a closely watched annual report released on Tuesday .
The Statistical Review of World Energy gives the clearest picture yet of energy supply, demand, and emissions from 2022. Three takeaways are that coal use and greenhouse gas emissions are still very high, Asian countries are seeing particularly fast renewables growth, and nuclear energy has been on the decline.
The year was characterized by extreme volatility, because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exacerbated shortages of several energy sources. Natural-gas prices reached record levels in Europe and Asia, and coal prices hit new records around the world. New laws in Europe and the U.S. helped finance renewables, but it will take years for that funding to translate into new projects.
Among the most eye-opening statistics in the review was regarding emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions rose 0.8%, even though solar and wind power grew at a record pace, the report said.
While renewables are growing fast enough to satisfy new demand for electricity, they aren’t eating into fossil fuel demand yet. Fossil fuels continue to account for 82% of primary energy consumption.
“We are still heading in the opposite direction to that required by the Paris Agreement,” said Energy Institute President Juliet Davenport. Despite record prices, coal demand rose 0.6% to hit its highest level since 2014. And production hit a record level, with almost all the growth coming from China, India, and Indonesia. Russia’s invasion reinforced the importance of energy security around the world, with several countries reemphasizing domestic energy supplies. Coal use is still declining in most of the world, but not yet in China and India.
At the same time, it’s clear China and India are also outpacing the rest of the world on installing renewables. Both countries increased their consumption of renewable energy by 18% in 2022, versus 13% growth worldwide. The U.S. grew renewables consumption by 12.8%. China now accounts for 29% of renewables consumption in the world and 32% of renewable generation.
One other takeaway from the report is that consumption of nuclear power has been on the downswing. In 2022, consumption of nuclear power fell 4.8%, with particularly large declines in Europe. Some of that had to do with outages at French nuclear plants that have since been resolved. But overall, nuclear energy will need to see much faster growth to keep up with renewables in the long term.
Write to Avi Salzman at