Part Four / What We’ve Done About It

4.24 Emissions and Growth

All online sources accessed on

  1. 54 per cent higher in 2019 than in 1990 Olivier, J. G. J., and Peters, J. A. H. W., Trends in Global CO2 and Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions: 2020 Report, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, December 2020, https://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/trends-in-global-co2-and-total-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2020-report.

    the global economy increased by about 120 per cent World Bank, ‘GDP (current US$)’, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD.

    80 per cent of the world’s energy in 2019 was from fossil fuels International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2021, October 2021, https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2021.

    annual emissions produced by the UK fell by 44 per cent Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Affairs, ‘Final UK greenhouse gas emissions national statistics: 1990 to 2020’, 1 February 2022, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/final-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-national-statistics-1990-to-2020.

    its economy grew by 78 per cent Office for National Statistics, ‘Gross domestic product: chained volume measures: seasonally adjusted £m’, 12 May 2022, https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/abmi/pn2.

    the reduction would be much smaller (around 15 per cent) Climate Change Committee, Progress in Reducing Emissions: 2021 Report to Parliament, June 2021, https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Progress-in-reducing-emissions-2021-Report-to-Parliament.pdf.