Fossil fuel use and emissions hit record highs as world struggles with deadly heat, storms and fires

By Laura Paddison, CNN

(CNN) — The world consumed record amounts of oil, coal and gas last year, pushing planet-heating carbon pollution to a new high, according to a report published Thursday, shattering climate scientists’ hopes that global energy emissions may have peaked.

The growth in fossil fuels drove a 2.1% increase in energy-related emissions last year, pushing them above 40 billion metric tons for the first time, according to the report published Thursday by the Energy Institute.

The report paints a bleak picture of a world struggling to wean itself off planet-warming fossil fuels even as the impacts of the climate crisis become more intense and more deadly.

Brutal extreme heat is currently scorching swaths of the planet. A heat wave unlike any seen in decades is sweeping large parts of the US, which is also grappling with deadly wildfires, storms and severe flooding. Hundreds of people have died as temperatures rose to 120 degrees Fahrenheit during the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. And India is currently grappling with a deadly summer heat wave which has killed dozens of people.

The report also shows that even though the world is adding clean, renewables at record levels, global energy demand is growing so fast that fossil fuels are filling the gaps.

Last year was “another year of highs in our energy hungry world,” said Juliet Davenport, president of the Energy Institute. “Energy is central to human progress,” she added. “It is also now central to our very survival.”

Global consumption of oil, coal and gas rose by 1.5% in 2023, driven in particular by a strong growth in oil. Last year, the world consumed more than 100 million barrels a day for the first time, the report found. The US remained the largest oil producer, growing its output by 8% last year.

Overall, the proportion of fossil fuels in the 2023 global energy mix remained largely the same at 81.5%, down just 0.5% from the previous year.

Fossil fuel growth was particularly strong in developing economies, the report found.

India’s fossil fuel consumption was up 8% last year and, for the first time ever, the country used more coal than Europe and North America, combined.

In China, fossil fuel use soared to a new record high in 2023, up by 6%, as the end of its extended Covid lockdowns led to a rebound in fossil fuels. However, the share of fossil fuels in the country’s overall energy mix is declining, as China continues to add huge amounts of renewables.

The report does point to some positive developments.

Fossil fuel use in major advanced economies is likely to have peaked and is beginning to fall, it found. In the US, fossil fuels fell to 80% of total energy consumed. In Europe, fossil fuels made up less than 70% of the energy mix for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, driven by reduced demand and renewable energy growth.

Energy generation from renewables, excluding hydropower, was up 13% almost entirely due to a boom in wind and solar, according to the report, although the rise in renewables was not enough to match increased global demand for energy, which rose 2% in 2023.

“In a year where we have seen the contribution of renewables reaching a new record high, ever increasing global energy demand means the share coming from fossil fuels has remained virtually unchanged,” said Simon Varley, vice chair and head of energy and Natural Resources at the firm KPMG, which co-authored the report.

Dave Jones, global insights director at climate think tank Ember, who was not involved in the report, said it should be a wake-up call for governments to act. “The world is still as hungry as ever for energy. To turn the tide on fossil fuel use, renewables needs to rise much faster, whilst keeping an eye on use energy less wastefully,” he told CNN.

To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a target countries agreed to in the Paris Agreement in 2015, the world needs to roughly halve emissions by the end of this decade.

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