IEA confirms decoupling of emissions and economic growth

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Source: Business Green

Renewable energy rollout starts to take effect as International Energy Agency reports falling emissions for second year running

Carbon emissions stayed flat for the second year in a row in 2015, despite continued growth in the global economy, according to preliminary data released today by the International Energy Agency (IEA) which adds to the growing pile of evidence to suggest economic growth has decoupled from greenhouse gas emission levels.

In 2015 global emissions stood at 32.1bn tonnes, the IEA said, a figure that has remained essentially flat since 2013, despite the global economy growing by more than three per cent. The latest analysis seems to confirm December predictions that the world could be starting to "bend the curve" of global emissions.

"The new figures confirm last year's surprising but welcome news: we have now seen two straight years of greenhouse gas emissions decoupling from economic growth," IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement. "Coming just a few months after the landmark COP21 agreement in Paris, this is yet another boost to the global fight against climate change."

According to the IEA, wide-scale deployment of renewable energy played a key role in curbing emissions growth, with renewables accounting for around 90 per cent of new electricity generation in 2015. The data is a sign that the record-breaking levels of investment in clean energy are beginning to bear fruit in terms of global emissions.

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Read more: http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2451196/iea-confirms-decoupling-of-emissions-and-economic-growth

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1. The economy is growing, but carbon emissions aren’t. That’s a really big deal

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/16/this-key-rule-of-economics-and-the-environment-just-failed-again/

The economy is growing, but carbon emissions aren’t. That’s a really big deal

By Chris Mooney March 16

Roughly a year ago, the International Energy Agency announced a wonky yet nonetheless significant development. Looking at data for the year 2014, the agency found that although the global economy grew — by 3.4 percent that year — greenhouse gas emissions from the use of energy (their largest source) had not. They had stalled at about 32.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, just as in 2013.

The agency called this a “decoupling” of growth from carbon dioxide emissions, and noted that it was the “the first time in 40 years in which there was a halt or reduction in emissions of the greenhouse gas that was not tied to an economic downturn.” For decades prior to 2014, economic growth had pretty much always meant more pollution of the atmosphere, and a worsening climate problem.

It now seems like 2014 wasn’t just a fluke — IEA is saying the same thing about 2015. In a news release Wednesday, the agency said that 2014’s hint of decoupling had now been “confirmed,” as 2015 also saw flat emissions combined with 3.1 percent global GDP growth. Emissions, the agency said, were just 32.1 billion metric tons in 2015, based on preliminary data — indicating perhaps even a slight downturn from 2014.

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That this decoupling is occurring is certainly a landmark. The relationship between economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions (and other environmental assaults) has been intensively studied, based on the premise that, as one paper put it, “Energy is considered to be the life line of an economy.”

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So how do you break this relationship? Simple: Find a new way of getting energy. Sure enough, the IEA attributed the second straight year of decoupled growth and emissions to a greater uptake of renewable energy, particularly wind, and fewer emissions in China and the United States, the two largest emitters by far. The former country is cutting back its coal use deliberately, while in the U.S., market forces have had a similar effect, as cheap natural gas has pushed out a considerable volume of coal in electricity generation.

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2. Worldwide Shift to Renewable Energy Played 'Critical Role' in Stalling Carbon Emissions

http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/17/renewables-reduce-carbon-emissions/

Worldwide Shift to Renewable Energy Played ‘Critical Role’ in Stalling Carbon Emissions

Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams | March 17, 2016 10:59 am | Comments

A growing worldwide shift to renewable energy has played a “critical role” in stalling global carbon emissions, the world’s leading energy analysts declared on Wednesday.

According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) preliminary analysis of 2015 data, for the second year in a row, the amount of carbon emitted from the world’s power sector remained essentially flat at 32.1 billion tons.

Declining coal use in China and the U.S., the world’s two biggest emitters of carbon and a surge in new renewable energy production were credited for driving that trend.

According to the figures, which will be included in the IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook report at the end of June, renewables “accounted for roughly 90 percent of new electricity generation in 2015,” with wind alone producing more than half of that new power.

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[MoreGOPoop]

3. Some good news!

Am off to read the entire article, but want to say thank you
for all your reporting of the Trojan Horse that is nuclear energy.

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5. Thanks! nt

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4. Surging Renewables Keep Global CO2 Flat As Economy Grows

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/16/3760809/renewables-global-co2-flat/

Surging Renewables Keep Global CO2 Flat As Economy Grows

by Joe Romm Mar 16, 2016 2:58 pm

The International Energy Agency has confirmed that global carbon dioxide emissions have decoupled from economic growth. The IEA reports that for the second year in a row, the world economy has grown while energy-related CO2 emissions — the primary cause of climate change — remained flat, thanks to energy efficiency and a big surge in renewables.

This decoupling is “unprecedented” and “huge” according to IEA chief Fatih Birol. The IEA explains that the only three previous times in the last four decades that emissions were flat or dropped (the early 1980s, 1992, and 2009) “were associated with global economic weakness.”

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6. IEA press release

https://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2016/march/decoupling-of-global-emissions-and-economic-growth-confirmed.html

Decoupling of global emissions and economic growth confirmed

IEA analysis shows energy-related emissions of CO2 stalled for the second year in a row as renewable energy surged

16 March 2016 Paris

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[NickB79]

7. And yet atmospheric carbon levels are rising faster than ever before, setting new records

In both the rate that they're rising and the absolute levels of CO2 present:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/10/co2-levels-make-largest-recorded-annual-leap-noaa-data-shows

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide last year rose by the biggest margin since records began, according to a US federal science agency.

Fossil fuel burning and a strong El Niño weather pattern pushed CO2 levels 3.05 parts per million (ppm) on a year earlier to 402.6 ppm, as measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Wednesday.

“Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years,” said Pieter Tans, lead scientist at Noaa’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. “It’s explosive compared to natural processes.”

The big jump in CO2 broke a record held since 1998, also a powerful El Niño year.

It appears that we've both saturated natural carbon sinks, and kicked off positive feedback loops (such as permafrost melting resulting in CO2 and methane venting) that are now out of our control despite limiting carbon emissions from our economic activities.

If this is truly the case, we have no choice but to prepare for 3-4C of warming by the end of the century, no matter how much we cut our emissions going forward. And 4C of warming is widely regarded as a civilization-threatening event