Growth in the global energy market is slowing down in 2019 as economic growth also weakens, bp Statistical Review of World Energy 2020 reported. The slowdown was showing clearly in countries like the U.S, India and Russia, which has shown strong growth in 2018.
The coal growth in India was only 0.3%, the lowest growth since 2001. This usually is the key drive to coal consumption. These increases in coal consumption were more than the counterbalance of the lowering demand in the developed world like in Germany and the U.S.
Global coal production and consumption had a fourth decline in six years by 0.6%, as the energy source displaced with renewables and natural gas to suppress pollution, especially in the power sector. This movement made coal’s share in the global energy to slide down to the lowest level in 16 years at 27%. Although the share of coal in the world’s energy was lowered, the consumption continued to increase in other countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and China. The carbon emission growth was also lowered in 2019 from the sharp rise in the year before, as an effect of decelerated primary energy consumption while coal slowly converted to natural gas and renewable energy.
China was by far the biggest country accounted for energy growth with more than three-quarter of net global growth, although the global consumption has lowered. The next contributors are India and Indonesia. In the counterparts, Germany and the U.s posted the largest decline.
The annual growth in carbon emissions over 2018 and 2019 was greater in average than its 10-year average. As global energy markets have been severely disrupted by the pandemic, it needs to make changes to a more sustainable energy. The global lockdowns have provided a glimpse of a cleaner, lower carbon world; as air quality in many of the world’s most polluted cities has improved because of the health measures; skies have become clearer. To get to net zero by 2050, the world requires reductions in carbon emissions with the similar percentages as this year for the next 25 years. Net zero is a way of balancing carbon emissions or eliminating carbon emissions altogether to lower the pollution levels due to fossil fuel consumption.
