Hello, Quartz Index readers!
Every year since 1971, more than 80% of all our energy has come from fossil fuels. That’s still true today. We’ve added so many non-fossil-fuel energy sources in the past 45 years, and yet our reliance on fossil fuels has remained unchanged.
There are few ways to understand why. First, most of the world’s clean-energy sources generate electricity. But electricity forms only 25% of the world’s energy consumption. Second, as the rich world moved towards a cleaner energy mix, much of the poor world was just gaining access to modern forms of energy. Inevitably, they chose the cheapest option, which was and remains fossil fuels.
So yes, we’re using much more clean energy than we used to. But the world’s energy demand has grown so steeply that we’re also using a lot more fossil fuels.
Historically, economic growth has been associated with growth in emissions. For the first time in many decades, between 2014 and 2016, the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions remained flat. It seemed like just maybe the world had figured out a way to keep growing without emitting more.
Unfortunately, new projections suggest 2017 will end with with more emissions than 2016. That’s because the rich world is not cutting its emissions fast enough, and the poor world continues to grow rapidly. All this is keeping in line with a long-standing trend of our startling dependence on fossil fuels.—Akshat Rathi
Quartz is currently running a series called The Race to Zero Emissions that addresses the challenges and opportunities of low-emissions technologies. Sign up here to be the first to know when stories are published.
[qz-index-article id=1150478][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-article id=1150320][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-sponsor][/qz-index-sponsor]
[qz-index-article id=1150068][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-article id=1148817][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-article id=1148701][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-article id=1147300][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-article id=1147132][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-article id=1146175][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-article id=1146428][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-article id=1146353][/qz-index-article]
[qz-index-article id=1144483][/qz-index-article]