NEW DELHI, Mar 2: Strong GDP growth and a weak monsoon drove up India’s energy-related carbon emissions by around 190 million tonnes in 2023, though the country’s per capita emissions remain far below the global average, the International Energy Agency said.
Global energy-related carbon emissions grew by 1.1 per cent in 2023, increasing 410 million tonnes (Mt) to reach a new record high of 37.4 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.
It said emissions in China grew around 565 Mt in 2023, the largest increase globally and a continuation of its emissions-intensive economic growth in the post-pandemic period. Per capita emissions in China are now 15 per cent higher than in advanced economies.
However, China continued to dominate global clean energy additions.
“In India, strong GDP growth drove up emissions by around 190 Mt. But a weak monsoon increased demand for electricity and cut hydro production, contributing around one-quarter of the increase in its total emissions in 2023. Per capita emissions in India remain far below the world average,” the IEA said.
India grappled with warm and dry conditions throughout 2023 and experienced a weak monsoon season, with August being the driest in at least 45 years.
In 2022, energy-related global emissions increased by 490 Mt, representing a 1.3 per cent rise.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), countries together need to cut down emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane by 43 per cent by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The IEA noted that emissions from coal accounted for more than 65 per cent of the increase in 2023.
It said global hydropower capacity increased by around 20 gigawatts (GW) in 2023. Despite this increase, the global generation of hydropower saw a record decline last year. This was primarily driven by severe and prolonged droughts that impacted major hydropower regions, exacerbated by the influence of El Niño — a periodic warming of waters in the central Pacific Ocean.
Had the availability of the hydropower plant fleet in 2023 remained consistent with 2022 levels, an additional 200 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity would have been generated globally.
This would have avoided the emission of around 170 million Mt CO2 from fossil fuel-based power plants. It would also have meant that electricity sector emissions would have fallen globally in 2023, instead of rising moderately, the IEA said.
It mentioned that between 2019 and 2023, total energy-related emissions increased by around 900 Mt. Without the growing deployment of five key clean energy technologies since 2019 — solar PV, wind, nuclear, heat pumps and electric cars — the emissions growth would have been three times larger.
“Thanks to the growing deployment of clean energy, emissions are experiencing a structural slowdown. In the decade to 2023, global emissions grew slightly more than 0.5 per cent per year, the slowest rate since the Great Depression,” the IEA said. (PTI)
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