Is the planet on track to cut energy sector emissions by 2024?

Earlier this year, energy analysts at Ember, a British clean energy think tank, made a bold statement: the global energy sector had officially passed its greenhouse gas peak, meaning emissions should start falling.

Today, electricity generation accounts for more than a quarter of planet-warming emissions—around the world, we still burn a lot of coal. And those emissions have been rising since the Industrial Revolution. Until, perhaps, this year.

Well, we’re halfway through 2024. Time for a progress report.

Here in the United States, power sector emissions have been declining for nearly two decades, thanks to a shift away from coal and toward energy sources such as natural gas and renewables, said Glenn McGrath, an operations research analyst at the Energy Information Administration.

“A lot more wind and a lot more solar in the system, and those are key drivers of emissions reductions,” he said.

But moving away from the global picture, the story is different: Emissions hit record levels last year. Countries like India and China have managed the growth in energy demand in part by building more coal-fired power plants. But at the same time, we’ve seen global growth in renewables get stronger year over year, said Dave Jones, director of global insights at Ember.

Strong enough, Jones said, to finally start cutting emissions. “Which would leave last year as a historic high,” he said.

Cheap solar power has been the fastest-growing source of electricity for 17 consecutive years, Jones said. But renewables aren’t the only way countries are trying to cut emissions, said Melissa Lott, a professor at Columbia University’s School of Climate Science.

“We’ve seen some countries move towards nuclear power, others are exploring carbon capture,” she said.

Overall, that means the energy sector is headed in the right direction. But she said the sector’s emissions can change unexpectedly, thanks to variables like unstable weather.

“This affects wind patterns, the amount of sun we get, the temperature of the water that cools the nuclear power plant and the amount of hydroelectric power we have access to,” she added.

In recent years, droughts have led to the weakening of hydroelectric dams in the U.S. and China.

“That’s why it’s so important that we use a mix of technologies in the system,” Lott said, “to provide lighting without burning more fossil fuels.”