Energy trends failing to match climate goals

摘要

The world’s carbon emissions - which grew by 2pc last year, the fastest since 2011 - are unlikely to start falling in the coming years unless governments step up policy incentives, BP warns. Global energy demand increased by 2.9pc last year, the highest growth since 2010, despite modest GDP growth and rising energy prices, BP says in its latest Statistical Review of World Energy. The rise was supported by an unusually high number of hot and cold days last year, it says. Around two-thirds of the growth came from China, the US and India. US energy consumption rose by 3.5pc, reversing a recent downward trend to record its fastest growth in 30 years. “There is a growing mismatch between societal demands for action on climate change and the actual pace of progress, with energy demand and carbon emissions growing at their fastest rate for years,” BP chief economist Spencer Dale says. “The world is on an unsustainable path.” Last year’s increase in CO2 emissions is “roughly equivalent to the carbon emissions associated with increasing the number of passenger cars on the planet by a third”, he says.