IEA: CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion Reach New Heights

What does the data show?

Provisional data show they grew even faster in 2018, with robust economic growth and the slowdown in renewables penetration more than offsetting some improvement in energy productivity.

As has been the case for the last several years, growth in 2017 and 2018 was largely due to non-OECD countries, mainly South-East Asia and Middle East.

Non-OECD countries as a whole showed growth rates higher than 2% for both years and exceeded 20 billion tons in 2018.

With changes ten times greater than in the OECD, non–OECD emissions are rapidly approaching twice the emissions levels of the OECD.

Credit: IEA, “CO2 emissions from fuel combustion, 2000-2018”

Factors

CO₂ emissions from fuel combustion are affected by a range of drivers, including population growth, GDP and energy supply.

CO₂ emissions from electricity generation, around 40% of the total, are driven by electricity output, generation efficiency, share and carbon intensity of fossil generation.

Electricity/heat generation and transport account for two thirds of total CO₂ emissions and were equally responsible of almost the entire global growth in emissions since 2010; the remaining third is split between industry and buildings.

The CO₂ Emissions from Fuel Combustion database contains annual CO₂ emissions from fuel combustion and related indicators for 190 countries plus regional aggregates.

Emission Calculation

Emissions were calculated using IEA energy databases and the default methods and emission factors given in the 2006 GLs for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. This edition includes annual data for 190 countries/regions, generally from 1960 (OECD) and from 1971 (Non-OECD), unless specified differently at the country level.