Amidst all the policy proposals, claims, and counterclaims about energy use and carbon emissions, it’s useful to touch base from time to time with basic current facts. One of my starting points is the Statistical Review of World Energy, published annually (free registration needed to download the report). The report is full of figures and tables, with some text sprinkled in. Here, I’ll just pass along a couple of big-picture fact patterns.
This figure shows sources of energy for regions around the world, as well as energy supply by region. Energy is measured by joules, and global energy supply is about 600 exajoules (that is, quintillion joules). The vertical axis shows total energy supply in each region, with the height of the region proportional to energy supply. The horizontal bars then show the share of energy for that region from the main primary sources. (Electricity is not included here because it isn’t a “source” of energy, but rather a way of transmitting and storing energy produced by primary sources.)
For advocates of net-zero carbon emissions, figures like this are a cold slap of reality. The shades of gray are fossil fuels. If the goal is literally to reduce the gray bars to zero, there is a very long way to go. If you look up energy supply per capita in the tables, the challenge of reducing carbon emissions looks even bigger. Countries of Africa, for example, average 14 gigajoules of energy supply per person. India averages 26 gigajoules of energy per person. In contrast, the nations of Europe average 106 gigajoules per person and the United States has 270 gigajoules per person. As lower-income countries pursue economic development, they will want to expand energy consumption quite substantially–like tripling or more.
Looking at world carbon emissions from energy for 2025, the US accounts for 13.3% of the world total, although US carbon emissions have been falling at an average annual rate of 0.8% for the previous 10 years. The nations of Europe as a group account for 9.9% of the world total carbon emissions from energy, with the total falling at an annual average rate of 1.7% in the last decade. In contrast, the Asia Pacific region as a whole accounts for 53.4% of global carbon emissions from energy, and for this region, the total has been growing at an average annual rate of 2% per year in the last decades. This region includes China, which accounts for 31.3% of all global carbon emissions, growing at 2.1% per year over the last decade, and India, at 8.3% of global carbon emissions and growing 3.4% per year over the last decade.
If the goal is to reduce future global carbon emissions, steps taken in the US and Europe will have only a modest direct effect. However, the US and Europe can play a meaningful role in developing the technologies and finding the capital for a vast expansion of non-carbon and low-carbon energy sources around the world–especially in the low-income countries and the Asia Pacific region.
