The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported on Friday that India witnessed a surge in its energy-related carbon emissions by approximately 190 million tonnes in 2023, driven by strong GDP growth and a weak monsoon. Despite this increase, India's per capita emissions remain significantly below the global average.
Global energy-related carbon emissions experienced a growth of 1.1 percent in 2023, rising by 410 million tonnes to a new record high of 37.4 gigatonnes, according to the IEA.
China recorded the largest increase in emissions globally, with around 565 million tonnes added in 2023, reflecting its emissions-intensive economic growth post-pandemic. However, China also led in global clean energy additions.
The IEA highlighted that in India, strong GDP growth contributed to the emissions surge, with an additional 190 million tonnes emitted in 2023. A weak monsoon further exacerbated the situation by increasing electricity demand and reducing hydro production, accounting for a quarter of the total emissions increase.
India faced warm and dry conditions throughout 2023, with August being the driest in at least 45 years.
In 2022, global energy-related emissions increased by 490 million tonnes, representing a 1.3 percent rise.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasized the need for countries to collectively reduce emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane by 43 percent by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The IEA noted that emissions from coal accounted for over 65 percent of the increase in 2023.
Despite adding around 20 gigawatts of global hydropower capacity in 2023, there was a record decline in hydropower generation due to severe droughts affecting major hydropower regions, exacerbated by El Niño.
Maintaining hydropower plant fleet availability at 2022 levels could have generated an additional 200 terawatt-hours of electricity globally, avoiding the emission of approximately 170 million tonnes of CO2 from fossil fuel-based power plants. This would have resulted in a global decrease in electricity sector emissions in 2023, rather than a moderate increase.
The IEA emphasized that between 2019 and 2023, total energy-related emissions increased by around 900 million tonnes. However, without the growing deployment of key clean energy technologies such as solar PV, wind, nuclear, heat pumps, and electric cars, emissions growth would have been three times higher.
"Thanks to the growing deployment of clean energy, emissions are experiencing a structural slowdown. In the decade to 2023, global emissions grew slightly more than 0.5 percent per year, the slowest rate since the Great Depression," the IEA said.
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