Question: Which of the following international organization recently released Global Energy and Carbon dioxide Status Report 2019?
(a) International Solar Alliance
(b) International Energy Agency
(c) World Meteorological Organization
(d) Friends for the Earths
Answer: (b)
Related facts:
- null
- The IEA’s second Global Energy and Carbon dioxide Status Report 2019 is an annual report giving an overview of recent global trends and developments across fuels, renewable sources, and energy efficiency and carbon emissions, in 2018.
The report:
- The global energy-related CO2 emissions rose 1.7% to a historic high of 33.1 Gt CO2 in 2018.
- While emissions from all fossil fuels increased, the power sector accounted for nearly two-thirds of emissions growth.
- Coal use in power surpassed 10 Gt CO2. Asia. China, India, and the United States accounted for 85% of the net increase in emissions while the emissions declined for Germany, Japan, Mexico, France and the United Kingdom.
- The increase in emissions took place due to increase in energy consumption resulting from a robust global economy and also due to weather conditions in some parts of the world that led to increased energy demand for heating and cooling.
- IEA, for the first time assessed the impact of fossil fuel use on global temperature increases. It found that CO2 emitted from coal combustion was responsible for over 0.3°C of the 1°C increase in global average annual surface temperatures above pre-industrial levels. With this coal becomes the single largest source of global temperature increase.
- The global average annual concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere averaged 407.4 ppm in 2018, up 2.4 ppm since 2017. This is a major increase from pre-industrial levels, which ranged between 180 and 280 ppm.
Trends by technology:
- Coal-fired power plants were the single largest contributor to the growth in emissions observed in 2018, with an increase of 2.9%, or 280 Mt, compared with 2017 levels, exceeding 10 Gt for the first time.
- Coal-fired electricity generation accounted for 30% of global CO2 emissions. The majority of that generation is found today in Asia.
Trends by region
- In China, CO2 emissions grew by 2.5%, or 230 Mt, to 9.5 Gt. It saw an increase of over 5% in electricity generation from coal-fired power stations.
- United States witnessed an increase of 3.1% in CO2 emissions in 2018 against the reductions seen in 2017.
- India saw emissions rise by 4.8%, or 105 Mt, with the even growth distribution between power and other sectors such as transport and industry. Regardless of the growth India’s per capita emissions remained low at only 40% of the global average.
- Emissions fell by 1.3%, or 50 Mt in Europe. The emissions decline was driven by a drop of 4.5% in Germany.
- Renewable energy generation also saw a record year in the United Kingdom, accounting for 35% of generation, as the share of coal fell to 5%, a record low.
Links:
https://www.iea.org/geco/emissions/
https://webstore.iea.org/global-energy-co2-status-report-2018