Sustainability Community

World CO2 emissions expanded by 1.8% compared to world GDP growth of 2.9% in 2023. The ratio of emissions-to-GDP fell by just over 1%, broadly in line with the average annual decline of the previous 25 years, however massively short of the 8% annual decline needed in 2020-2030 to achieve net-zero by 2050.

Whereas the pace of decarbonisation made by advanced economies has been falling to their lowest level since 1970, where the CO2/GDP ratio fell by 6%. CO2 emissions from the Fitch10 developed economies (DM10) dropped by 4.2% while GDP grew by 1.8%, and where most of this improvement was due to gains in the energy efficiency and reducing the carbon intensity of energy consumption, little progress was made in emerging markets.

Emerging markets as a whole failed to make any progress in decarbonisation, with both CO2 emissions and GDP of the Fitch 'EM10' increasing by 4.7% last year. Neither energy efficiency nor the carbon intensity of energy showed any improvement, the worst performance in a decade.

The lack of progress in decarbonisation in emerging markets is particularly concerning, given their faster GDP growth and rising share of global energy consumption.

One of the reasons for emerging markets' poor performance is underinvestment in clean energy projects, especially in emerging markets excluding China.

World CO2 emissions expanded by 1.8% compared to world GDP growth of 2.9% in 2023. The ratio of emissions-to-GDP fell by just over 1%, broadly in line with the average annual decline of the previous 25 years, however massively short of the 8% annual decline needed in 2020-2030 to achieve net-zero by 2050.

Whereas the pace of decarbonisation made by advanced economies has been falling to their lowest level since 1970, where the CO2/GDP ratio fell by 6%. CO2 emissions from the Fitch10 developed economies (DM10) dropped by 4.2% while GDP grew by 1.8%, and where most of this improvement was due to gains in the energy efficiency and reducing the carbon intensity of energy consumption, little progress was made in emerging markets.

Emerging markets as a whole failed to make any progress in decarbonisation, with both CO2 emissions and GDP of the Fitch 'EM10' increasing by 4.7% last year. Neither energy efficiency nor the carbon intensity of energy showed any improvement, the worst performance in a decade.

The lack of progress in decarbonisation in emerging markets is particularly concerning, given their faster GDP growth and rising share of global energy consumption.

One of the reasons for emerging markets' poor performance is underinvestment in clean energy projects, especially in emerging markets excluding China.