Climate-related heatwaves pushed up energy sector emissions in 2024, despite record wind and solar

Climate change-created heat waves were behind a rise in energy-related carbon emissions last year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) latest year in review report.

The need for cooling, largely by people living in emerging and developing economies outside China, was one of the key drivers of final energy demand in 2024, alongside electrification and the growth of data centres.

The IEA’s year in review report shows demand for all forms of energy recovered in 2024, growing by 2.2 per cent and renewable generation a clear leader in meeting those needs. Electricity, because of the rising temperatures, soared 4.4 per cent, or more than 1,000 terawatt hours (four times the annual electricity consumption in Australia).

New wind and solar accounted for more than 60 per cent of this increase in electricity demand, or 670 terrawatt hours, after yet another record year of installations. The rest came from increases in gas (170 TWh), coal (90 TWh) and nuclear (100 TWh).

But the irony that the 0.8 per cent rise in overall energy sector emissions – including electricity, transport and heating – was due to the impact of climate change on the world’s poorest nations,was not lost on the report’s authors.

They said that had weather in 2024 remained similar to that of 2023 – itself the hottest year on record – half of the 300 million tonne increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions last year could have been avoided. 

“Electricity use in buildings accounted for nearly 60 per cent of overall growth in 2024,” the report says.  “Most emissions growth in 2024 came from emerging and developing economies outside China.” 

The other two major drivers of global energy demand in 2024 were electrification and data centres. 

Installed data centre capacity globally increased by an estimated 20 per cent, or 15 gigawatts (GW), mostly in the United States and China.

China and India, the world’s most populous countries, accounted for the largest and second largest rise in energy demand – even though China’s growth halved from the previous year to less than 3 per cent.

“Nevertheless, despite this deceleration [in China and India], four-fifths of total global energy demand growth still took place in emerging markets and developing economies, with three-fifths of the total in Developing Asia,” the report says. 

“Growth in India alone was more than the increase in demand in all advanced economies combined.”

Australia winning with solar, wind

The report only mentioned Australia three times, and two of those were in the context of emissions reductions.   

Australia, New Zealand, China, and the EU were the beneficiaries of adopting solar PV, wind power, electric cars and heat pumps – and nuclear for the latter two – between 2019 and 2024.

The adoption of these five technologies by those countries and the EU over that time prevented the equivalent of more than 10 per cent of total energy-related emissions in 2024, the IEA said.

The growth of solar PV around the world in those six years has avoided around 1.4 Gt of annual emissions, equivalent to the combined annual emissions of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, the report says. 

Wind power has avoided around 900 Mt of carbon dioxide, while electric cars and heat pumps are 80 Mt and 65 Mt respectively.

In 2024, the use of these five technologies avoided fossil fuel demand equivalent to 6 per cent of total fossil fuel use last year. While it’s not enough to stop the rise in global emissions, the IEA says it’s started a structural slowdown. 

The IEA expects that contribution from heat pumps and EVs to jump – but the latter is already making big waves in the world’s largest country. 

China is now seeing an overall new energy vehicle penetration rate of 35 per cent, and around 50 per cent of all new passenger vehicles. 

That kind of growth in EV demand meant China was also behind the slump in global transport oil demand. 

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