How the US cut climate-changing emissions while its economy more than doubled

Countries around the world are discussing the need to curb climate change for three decadeshowever, global greenhouse gas emissions – and global temperatures with them-keep growing.

When it feels like we're getting nowhere, it's helpful to take a step back and review the progress we've made.

Let's look at the United States, historically world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Over these three decades The US population grew by 28% and the economy, measured by inflation-adjusted gross domestic product, more than doubled.

However, U.S. emissions from many activities that produce greenhouse gases—transportation, industry, agriculture, building heating and cooling—remained about the same over the past 30 years. Transport has improved slightly; the industry fell slightly. And emissions from electricity, once the nation's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, have dropped significantly.

Overall, the US continues to rank among the countries with the highest emissions per capitaso there is room for improvement and emissions have not dropped enough to put the country on track to achieve their obligations up to 10 years Paris Climate Agreement. But the USA emissions have decreased about 15% over the last 10 years.

Here's how it happened:

US electricity emissions fell

US Electricity Use growing More recently, with the move to greater electrification of vehicles, as well as heating and cooling, and the expansion of data centers, greenhouse gas emissions from electricity have dropped nearly 30% since 1995.

One of the main reasons for the big drop is that Americans are using less coal and more natural gas to generate electricity.

Both coal and natural gas are fossil fuels. Both release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when they are burned to produce electricity, and that carbon dioxide traps heat, raising global temperatures. But power plants Maybe make electricity more efficient using natural gas compared to coal, so it produces fewer emissions per unit of power.

Why did the US start using more natural gas?

Research and technological innovation Fracturing and horizontal drilling have allowed companies to produce more oil and gas at lower costs, making it cheaper to produce electricity from natural gas rather than coal.

As a result, utilities have built more natural gas-fired power plants, especially ultra-efficient ones. combined cycle gas power plants, which produce electricity using gas turbines and also capture waste heat from those turbines to produce more energy. More coal-fired power plants are closing or running less.

Because natural gas is a more efficient fuel than coal, it has been a win for the climate in comparison, even though it is a fossil fuel. As a result, the US has reduced emissions from electricity.

Significant increasing energy efficiencyfrom household appliances to lighting also played a role. Even though tech gadgets seem to be constantly charging everywhere these days, household electricity consumption per person stabilized during the first two decades of the 2000s after continuous growth since the 1940s.

Renewable electricity and battery costs are falling

Renewable electricity generation in the US, including wind, solar and hydropower, almost tripled since 1995helping to further reduce emissions from power generation.

Costs for solar and wind energy have fallen so much that they are now cheaper than coal and compete with natural gas. Fourteen states, including most of the Great Plains, now receive at least 30% of its capacity from solar, wind and battery energy.

While wind energy is cost competitive with fossil fuels for minimum 20 yearssolar photovoltaic energy could compete with fossil fuels only in about 10 years. So expect solar photovoltaic systems to be deployed in continue to increaseboth in the US and abroad, even if the US federal subsidies will disappear.

Both wind and solar provide intermittent power: the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Utilities address this problem in several ways. One way is to use demand managementoffering lower electricity prices during off-peak periods or rebates for companies that can reduce electricity consumption during times of high demand. Virtual power plants combine multiple types of distributed energy resources—solar panels in homes, batteries, even smart thermostats—to manage electricity supply and demand. In the USA it was rated 37.5 gigawatts of virtual power plants in 2024, equivalent to approximately 37.5 nuclear power reactors.

Another method of energy management is battery storage, which is just now I'm starting to take off. Battery costs have decreased over the past few years, this has been enough to make utility-scale battery storage cost-effective.

What about driving?

In the US, gasoline consumption has remained roughly constant, but Fuel economy has improved overall for decades.

However, sales of electric vehicles, which could further reduce emissions, have been slow. This may be due in part to the success of fracking: US oil production increasedboth gasoline and diesel prices remained relatively low.

People in other countries change to electric vehicles faster than in the US as the cost of electric vehicles has fallen. Chinese consumers can buy an entry-level electric car for less than $10,000 in China with the help of government subsidies, and the country leads the world in sales of electric vehicles.

In 2024, US residents bought 1.6 million electric vehiclesand global sales reached 17 millionwhich is 25% more than a year earlier.

The unknown lies ahead: what about data centers?

Construction new data centerspartly to facilitate the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, is attracting a lot of attention to future energy demand and to the uncertainty ahead.

Data centers are increasing the demand for electricity in some places, such as northern VirginiaDallas, Phoenix, Chicago and Atlanta. Future the growth in demand for electricity from data centers is still unclearhowever, keeping in mind the consequences data centers electricity tariffs and grid emissions also remain uncertain.

However, AI is not the only reason to keep an eye on rising energy demand: the US can expect increased demand for electricity for industrial processes and electric vehicles, as well as a general shift away from using oil and gas for heating and home appliances. use electricity this continues throughout the country.

This article has been republished from Talk under Creative Commons license. Read original article.