In 2015, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes have stalled, confirming the slowdown trend observed since 2012. It is a result of structural changes in the global economy, global energy efficiency improvements and changing energy mix in key countries, concludes the latest report by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the JRC.

In 2015, two-thirds of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes were generated in China (with 29% share in the global total), the United States (14%), the European Union (EU-28) (10%), India (7%), the Russian Federation (5%) and Japan (3.5%).

For the first time, China effectively curbed its emissions, reducing them by 0.7% compared to 2014. Also emissions in the Russian Federation, the US and Japan decreased by 3.4%, 2.6% and 2.2% respectively. India’s emission growth continued, with 5.1% increase in 2015.

In the EU, the slight increase of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes (by ca 1.3%), after four years of significantly decreasing annual emissions (by 13.4% in total over the period 2011-2014) is explained by an increase of gas consumption by 4.6%, which is mainly used for heating due to a colder winter in 2015 compared to 2014, and an increase of diesel consumption in transport by 4%. At the same time CO2 emissions related to electricity generation decreased by 0.6%, with electricity production growing by 1.3%. This is due to a much larger share of renewable electricity, mainly hydro, wind and solar power, in total electricity generation in 2015 (29%, which is an increase by 4.4% in comparison to 2014) and a reduction by 1.8% of coal consumption.

Changes in fossil fuel mix and renewable energy

The global primary energy consumption increased in 2015 by 1%, which is similar to 2014 but well below the 10-year average of 1.9%, even though fossil fuel prices fell in 2015 in all regions. Coal consumption globally decreased in 2015 by 1.8%, while global oil and gas consumption rose by 1.9% and 1.7%. The production of nuclear energy went up by 1.3% and of hydroelectricity by 1.0%, resulting in shares of 10.7% and 16.4% in total global power generation.

In 2015 significant increases of 15.2% are observed in other renewable power sources, notably wind and solar energy. With double-digit growth for the twelfth year in a row, they now provide almost 6.7% of global power generation, almost a doubled share over the past five years (3.5% in 2010). However, their share in 2015 remained at 2.8% of the total global primary energy consumption.
The remaining two-thirds of global power generation are generated by fossil fuel-fired power stations, that is 1% point down from 2014 and the lowest share since 2002.

Further mitigation of fossil fuel use necessary

Authors call for further reduction of fossil-fuel use, and in particular of coal use, to achieve the large absolute decreases in global greenhouse gas emissions necessary to meet the Paris Agreement's goal to keep global warming to well below 2ºC. The reductions needed to meet this target are still achievable through further deployment of mitigation measures, provided that the deployment is implemented both at large scale and fast.

CO2 reports series

Trends in Global CO2 Emissions is the annual publication by the JRC and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency scientists from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) teams. After publishing web reviews in 2007 and 2008, the CO2 report series took off in 2009, providing annually up-to-date knowledge on the trend of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement. CO2 emission estimates are based on the energy consumption data published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), for the period 1970-2014 and by BP for 2015.

The CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes (cement production, carbonate use of limestone and dolomite, non-energy use of fuels and other combustion, chemical and metal processes, solvents, agricultural liming and urea, waste and fossil fuel fires) do not include CO2 emissions from short-cycle biomass burning (such as agricultural waste burning), large-scale biomass burning (such as forest fires) and carbon emissions/removals of land-use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) and do not cover emissions of other greenhouse gases than CO2. The figures cover ca 64% % of total greenhouse gas emissions in the world, in EU28 they cover 76% of the total greenhouse gas emissions.

The underlying detailed emissions database is the EDGAR version 4.3.2 for 1970-2012. The reports and data are available on EDGAR and PBL websites.

Source: EU Science Hub