The climate crisis may finally be making an impact in U.S. politics, and around the world, protests and speeches are bringing more and more attention to the issue. But attention and action are very different things. For the third year in a row, global CO2 emissions have increased. In fact, emissions soared in 2018, increasing at a rate not seen for at least seven years.
This information comes from a statistical review published by BP. Not only are the top-line numbers disappointing, but what’s behind them is even more concerning. The fastest rate of emissions growth came from Asia, and the rate of emissions in that region increased, even though the economy in the area was slow. Emissions growth outpaced economic growth.
Part of that is because of the nature of the energy that was added. In the United States, the cost of renewables and natural gas have both undercut the economic viability of coal. But the same can’t be said for India, China, and neighboring countries. That made coal one of the fastest-growing fuel sources for 2018. Renewables grew rapidly as well. They’re just not growing rapidly enough to meet the increased demand.
A big part of why that happened appears to be a disturbing feedback loop. The climate crisis is driving more extreme weather and creating patterns that are introducing new terms into the vocabulary of populations around the world. It’s not just prolonged droughts and days of record heat—though those are definitely occurring—it’s also “bomb cyclones” and “polar vortexes” as normal patterns are disrupted. Even though the general trend is of a warming world, the number of both unusually warm and unusually cold days keeps increasing, which in turn generates a demand for additional heating and cooling.
The trend of extreme weather driving an ever-greater demand for energy isn’t likely to end any time soon.
