Global emissions from fossil fuel power generation peaked this year

Globally, wind and solar are growing faster than any other source of electricity in history, according to a recent report by think tank Ember. It took only 8 and 12 years for solar and wind to grow from 100 TWh to 1,000 TWh per year, respectively. For the same 100 TWh to 1,000 TWh, it took 28 years for natural gas power plants, 32 years for coal electrification, and 39 years for hydropower.

Globally, wind and solar are now growing fast enough to outpace growing demand for electricity, meaning that global fossil fuel generation and emissions will peak from 2024. As a result, a new era of declining fossil fuel power generation is on the horizon. Renewables met a record 30% of global electricity demand in 2023, and emissions might have peaked in 2023 had it not been for the record decline in hydropower that year. The rise of wind and solar has hampered the growth of fossil fuel power generation, without which fossil fuel power generation would have grown by 22% in 2023, adding about 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to annual global emissions.

The share of solar energy in the global energy mix will reach 5.5% in 2023, up from 4.6% in 2022; The share of wind power remained stable at 7.8%. The growth of clean energy needs to accelerate further to meet the global goal of tripling renewable energy by 2030. Achieving this goal would nearly halve emissions from the power sector by 2030, putting the world on a path to align with the 1.5 degrees Celsius climate goal set by the Paris Agreement.