The economy is on the rise, and so is energy. Translation: more CO2 emissions.
Last year global energy consumption saw its greatest increase in nearly forty years.According to The Economist, consumption rose by 5.6 percent in 2010. The last increase of this magnitude was in 1973.
With the exception of nuclear energy, all forms of fossil fuels and non-fossil-fuel energy sources grew in consumption.
The reason for the increase: recovery from the economic crisis and numerous emerging economies.
“Following the global economic collapse in 2008, mature economies such as the U.S. and [the European Union] cut way back on using energy,” wrote Lincoln Pratson, Truman and Nellie Semans/Alex Brown and Sons professor of earth and ocean sciences, in an email. “This cut back led to an overall worldwide decline in energy use even as developing economies that were not slowed by the economic crisis, such as China, India and Brazil, continued to use more energy.”
Developing countries need more energy to grow—rising standards of living and increasing populations all mean more energy consumption—and these countries are not always the most efficient in their energy use.
Rising energy use has numerous environmental implications. According to The Economist, carbon dioxide emissions have risen even faster than energy consumption—increasing by 5.8 percent last year—the fastest growth since 1969.
“The nations of the world will be hard pressed to keep CO2 emissions at current levels, and in fact it’s more likely that these emissions will grow,” he said. “This in turn will increase the heat trapping capacity of the atmosphere and possibly accelerate global warming.”
Despite record growth in emissions, many countries are now switching from burning coal as an energy source to natural gas, which is both plentiful and emits considerably less CO2.
“The positive side to this is that burning natural gas produces about half of the CO2 emissions that coal does, so a shift to gas will help slow the rate at which we are releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, which in turn could slow global warming,” Pratson said.
However, there are downsides to using natural gas.
“The abundance of gas will keep its price low relative to the price of renewable technologies, slowing their adoption—at some point we are going to have to use more renewable forms of energy," he said.
Despite strides toward more efficient sources of energy, as long as trends in economic growth and energy consumption continue to rise, so will emissions.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.