The world is struggling with the energy crisis – not one of the scarcity, but it is the one that was created through overwhelming demand. More powerful data centers and artificial intelligence algorithms come online. Developing countries use more energy to support their members and industries. Since the electric world – replacement of gas cars with electric cars, for example – will use more energy. So the electrical network does not only need renewable energy sources (and Battars to store its energy) To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also to meet the increasing demand.
new analysis From the Paris -based International Energy Agency, it places some difficult numbers to this challenge, and found that in 2024, electricity consumption jumped by 4.3 percent around the world, or nearly twice the annual average during the past decade. The use of energy in buildings is approximately 60 percent of growth last year, with other drivers, including the multiplication of intensive energy and electricity industries.
“What is certain is that the use of electricity is growing rapidly, which leads to an increase in energy demand in general, bes somewhat to the extent that it is sufficient to reflect years of low energy consumption in advanced economies,” Fateh Birol, IEA CEO, said in a press statement announcing the results. “The result is that the demand for all major fuel and energy technologies increased in 2024, as renewable energy sources cover the largest share of growth, followed by natural gas.”
The good news is that the installation of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy set a record in 2024 for the 22nd year in a row, according to the analysis, while 33 percent of the nuclear capacity on the Internet compared to 2023. Renewable energy and nuclear energy combined for 80 percent of the increase in electricity generation around the world. Together, the two sources dealt with 40 percent of the total generation for the first time, which means that the energy -related carbon dioxide emissions increased by only 0.8 percent last year, compared to 1.2 percent in 2023.
Meanwhile, the global economy grew by more than 3 percent in 2024. Carbon dioxide emissions, in other words, did not keep pace with economic growth, and therefore carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth are increasingly disintegrated. Under the title numbers, the story differs to the area. While countries like the United States can easily spread more renewable energy sources to reduce their emissions and retain economic growth – renewable energy sources In fact, it encouraged this growth In 2024, the largest part of the rise in emissions came from developing economies. “We can get more energy and emissions – we Need R. Max Holmes, President and CEO of the Climate Research Center, who did not participate in the analysis, “for more energy and less emissions.
However, regardless of the country, renewable energy sources do not grow enough to displace fossil fuels: oil demand increased by 0.8 percent in 2024 and coal by 1 percent. The demand for natural gas increased by 2.7 percent, which increases the annual growth rate of 1 percent between 2019 and 2023. This was thanks to the growth of heavy industries alongside brutal heat waves, especially in China and India. The more heated in the world, the more people who run their air conditioners, which creates a request that the power plants should meet by burning fossil fuels, which leads to more warming and more use AC.
However, the report reveals that the world achieves some progress in weaning of fossil fuels. In 2024, EVS formed a fifth of all car sales worldwide. In the United States, sales of electrical heat pumps – which Transfer heat from the outer air to a house 15 percent jumped last year, and now gas ovens exceeded 30 percent. Finally, since 2019, it is forbidden to spread solar energy, wind energy, nuclear energy, EVS and heat pumps now launch 2.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. “This is about half the emissions of the American economy, and this is just five solutions in five years,” said Jonathan Foley, CEO of the Drawdown project, a non -profit organization in Minnesota who was not involved in the report. “We are still falling behind the knees. All bad news is still true – climate change is still happening, it’s bad, it’s ugly, we are not doing enough. But I see a turning point here.”
The big question in the United States is whether the new Trump administration, which was stronglydismantlingclimateprogress In the first two months in office, this shift can bow to clean energy. Experts say this There are basic market forces Besides the control of the federal government, renewable energy sources are now more cheaper for publication than the infrastructure to maintain fossil fuels. “The world moves away from fossil fuels and towards renewable and non -renewable energy sources that are emitted by gas,” said Holmes. “This will happen. What the Trump administration is currently doing can slow down this transition, but it can definitely not stop this transition.”
