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Global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rose less strongly in 2023 than the year before, even as total energy demand growth accelerated, with continued expansion of solar photovoltaic (PV), wind, nuclear power and electric cars helping the world avoid greater use of fossil fuels. Without clean energy technologies, the global increase in CO2 emissions in the past five years would have been three times greater, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in one of its reports.

Emissions increased by 410-million tons, or 1.1%, in 2023, compared with a 490-million-tonne increase in 2022, taking emissions to a record level of 37.4-billion tons. Specifically, an exceptional shortfall in hydropower owing to extreme droughts in China, the US and several other economies resulted in more than 40% of the rise in emissions in 2023, as countries turned largely to fossil fuel alternatives to plug the gap.

“Had it not been for the unusually low hydropower output, global CO2 emissions from electricity generation would have declined in 2023 and made the overall rise in energy-related emissions significantly smaller,” the report pointed out. Additionally, advanced economies saw a record fall in their CO2 emissions in 2023 even as their gross domestic product (GDP) grew. Advanced economies’ emissions dropped to a 50-year low while coal demand fell back to levels not seen since the early 1900s. The decline in advanced economies’ emissions was driven by a combination of strong renewables deployment, coal-to-gas switching, energy efficiency improvements and softer industrial production.

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