In 2023, wind and solar combined added more new energy to the global mix than any other source, for the first time in history, according to Carbon Brief analysis of newly released data.
Nevertheless, record global demand for energy saw coal and oil use also reaching new highs last year, the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2024 finds.
This pushed global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to another record in 2023, the world’s first full year with no impact from the coronavirus pandemic, the data shows.
Key figures from the report include:
- Global energy demand reached a record high of 620 exajoules (EJ) in 2023, with annual growth of 2.0%, slightly above the 1.5% per year average for the last decade.
- Wind and solar together were the largest source of new energy in 2023, adding 4.9EJ or 40% of the increase overall. The rest of the net increase came from oil (+4.8EJ, 39% of the increase), coal (+2.5EJ, 20%), nuclear (+0.4EJ, 4%) and other non-hydro renewables (+0.5EJ, 4%), while gas stayed flat and hydro declined (-0.9EJ, -8%).
- Global energy use from coal grew 1.6% year-on-year to a record high of 164EJ, passing the previous record of 162EJ, set a decade earlier in 2014.
- Global energy use from oil grew 2.5% to a record high of 196EJ, comfortably above the previous high of 193EJ set in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic.
- Global energy use from gas was unchanged at 144EJ. It has now flatlined for two years since the global energy crisis, due to Russia cutting off gas supplies to Europe.
- Global electricity generation from coal grew by 189 terawatt hours (TWh, 1.8%) year-on-year to a record high of 10,513TWh. This was despite wind and solar adding a record 537TWh of new generation, up a combined 15.7% year-on-year to 3,967TWh.
- The new highs for coal and oil use drove global emissions to another record, with releases from fossil fuel burning, industrial processes, methane and flaring topping 40bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) for the first time.
With global temperatures inching closer to the 1.5C limit, time is running out to peak and then decline emissions in order to avoid dangerous levels of warming. The new figures show the world is still going in the wrong direction, with new records for coal, oil and CO2 emissions.
Yet there are hints that, beyond today’s data for 2023, the world could be turning a corner, as emissions from China – and the global electricity system – may already have peaked.
This is the second edition of the statistical review published by the Energy Institute. Carbon Brief covered earlier editions, published by oil major BP, in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Wind and solar make history
One of the most striking details in this year’s report is that wind and solar, when combined, added more new energy to the global mix in 2023 than any other source, as shown in the figure below.
The combined 4.9EJ of new energy from wind and solar in 2023 accounted for 40% of the overall increase in global demand, ahead of oil (39%) and coal (20%).
This is the first time in history that these newer forms of renewable energy have outpaced each of the fossil fuels, which remain the world’s dominant sources of energy.
Still, the significant increases in demand for energy from oil (+4.8EJ) and coal (+2.5EJ), shown in the figure above, resulted in yet another increase in global CO2 emissions.
The drop in hydro output – also shown above – resulted from major droughts around the world in 2023, particularly in China. This shortfall was largely met by increased coal power.
Along with the continued rapid expansion of wind and solar, a recovery in hydro generation from last year’s lows is expected to contribute to a peak in emissions from the global power sector.
While global demand for oil and gas is not expected to peak until later this decade, reductions in coal use could still drive a near-term peak in global CO2 emissions.
Record highs for coal and oil
The record 4.9EJ of new energy added by wind and solar in 2023 marks a continuation of their rapid growth over the past decade, shown in the figure below.
In combination, wind and solar now contribute 37EJ to the global energy system, up 15% year-on-year. Their combined output has grown at an average 17% per year for the past decade, taking them from a total of just 8EJ in 2013 to the 2023 figure of 37EJ.
As the figure below shows, wind and solar overtook nuclear power in 2021 and, in combination, they are likely to overtake hydropower this year.
Still, it is clear from the figure that the global energy system remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels.
At a new record of 196EJ in 2023, oil is the world’s largest source of energy, accounting for nearly a third of the total (32%) energy mix and having grown nearly every year for the past half-century.
Coal is in second place, at 164EJ in 2023 or 26% of the mix. While this, too, marks a new record, global coal demand has been flat for the past decade. Indeed, at one point it seemed that the previous 2014 record of 162EJ might have marked a lasting peak for the fuel.
Notably, the figure above shows that global gas demand has now flatlined for the past two years. While the future trajectory for the fuel remains uncertain, this recent trend illustrates why the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in late 2022 that the “golden age of gas” had been brought to an end by the global energy crisis, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier that year.
In total, fossil fuels met some 81.5% of global primary energy demand in 2023, as shown in the figure below. While this is a record low, it is only around 4 percentage points lower than a decade earlier – and 5 percentage points below the level seen in 1990.
Energy Institute chief executive Nick Wayth told a pre-release press briefing that the data could be interpreted to suggest that the global energy transition “has not even started”:
“At the global level, today’s new data provides little encouragement in terms of global climate change mitigation. Clean energy is still not even meeting the entirety of demand growth and therefore at a global level not displacing fossil fuels. Arguably, the transition has not even started.”
However, this interpretation hides a “lopsided” picture for different parts of the world, Wayth said. “Fossil demand is likely to be peaking” in the major economies of Europe and the US, he explained, even as countries in the Global South are “still carbonising”.
Electricity system in flux
To date, the energy transition has had the most dramatic impact on the global electricity system, as the figure below shows. Wind and solar generation has grown from a combined 774TWh in 2013 to nearly 4,000TWh in 2023 – more than quintupling in a decade.
Together, wind and solar accounted for 13% of global electricity supplies in 2023, up from 3% a decade earlier. Still, rapidly-rising demand for electricity, which is expected to accelerate as heat, transport and industry are increasingly electrified, means that coal power reached a record high of 10,513TWh in 2023.This cements its position as the single-largest contributor to the mix.
Low-carbon sources of clean energy, including nuclear and renewables, now make up a record high 39% of global electricity supplies, ahead of coal at 35%. With gas making up a further 23% of the mix, the majority of the world’s electricity is still being generated with fossil fuels.
The expansion of wind and solar is expected to continue and even accelerate – particularly if the global goal of tripling renewable capacity by 2030 is to be met.
Combined with a recovery in global hydropower output, following a series of major droughts, this could force fossil fuel power into the beginning of structural decline in 2024.
Record CO2 emissions
Taking all of the pieces together, the record for coal and oil use along with flat demand for gas means global CO2 emissions reached a new high in 2023, the Energy Institute’s data shows. This is despite the record amounts of new energy added by wind and solar power.
In total, global emissions from fossil fuels, industrial processes, methane and flaring breached 40GtCO2e for the first time in 2023, as shown in the figure below.
China’s emissions grew by 708m tonnes of CO2e (MtCO2e, 6%) year-on-year, accounting for 85% of the net increase globally (829MtCO2e). India’s emissions also grew strongly, up 257MtCO2e (9%), while emissions in the US and EU fell by 140MtCO2 (2.7%) and 188MtCO2e (6.6%) respectively.
The Energy Institute estimate confirms earlier analysis from the Global Carbon Project (GCP) and the IEA, both of which found fossil fuel CO2 emissions had reached a new record high in 2023.
However, GCP estimates including CO2 emissions from land use change put 2023 just below the record set in 2019, with the total having been roughly flat for a decade.
Looking ahead, the key question for global emissions is whether China has already peaked and, if so, how quickly its emissions begin to fall. If it has, then it would add to continued emissions reductions in developed countries and likely outweigh increases elsewhere.
The post Analysis: Wind and solar added more to global energy than any other source in 2023 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Wind and solar added more to global energy than any other source in 2023
Climate Change
Sweden, an Early Climate Leader, Is Retreating From Its Environmental Commitments, Part of an EU Trend
As the U.S. abandons international climate agreements, the EU is hesitating to lead. A once-admired Nordic nation’s backtracking on its climate goals offers clues as to why.
Five years after the European Union vowed to lead the creation of the “first climate neutral continent” by 2050, and pledged at least a trillion euros to that effort, a long list of organizations, companies and agencies are accusing the EU of rolling back its European Green Deal with deregulation. Controversial proposals also include carbon offsets, loopholes in its emissions targets and delays of important efforts to reduce deforestation and make cleaner cars. Some critics have gone so far as to argue that the 27-nation union, the world’s third-largest carbon emitter, is now starting to mirror, rather than counter, the dismantling of climate efforts in the U.S.
Climate Change
Healing the Land, Healing Ourselves: Climate Grief and Indigenous Ceremonial Practices
Climate change is not only a physical or scientific crisis but also a spiritual and emotional one. As forests burn, waters rise, and species vanish, people around the world are experiencing a deep, often overwhelming sorrow known as climate grief. For Indigenous Peoples, this grief is profoundly layered. It is grief for the land, for sacred places lost or polluted, for ancestral foods no longer harvested, and for cultural practices threatened by environmental destruction.
Yet in the face of this grief, Indigenous communities are turning to ceremony, not as a retreat from reality, but as a powerful form of response, resistance, and renewal. Ceremony offers a space for collective mourning, connection to ancestors and land, and healing across generations.
What Is Climate Grief in Indigenous Contexts?
Climate grief among Indigenous Peoples often encompasses:
- The disappearance of animal relatives and medicinal plants is integral to cultural identity.
- The loss of seasonal rhythms that guide ceremony, harvesting, and kinship practices.
- The disruption of sacred responsibilities to care for water, land, and future generations.
- The emotional toll of witnessing ongoing ecological injustice tied to colonialism and extractive industry.
This grief is not abstract—it is experienced viscerally and communally, and it is inseparable from histories of land dispossession, forced relocation, and cultural suppression.
But where colonial systems pathologize grief, Indigenous knowledge systems validate and honour it. Grief is a necessary process that can reconnect us to responsibilities, reawaken our relationships with the land, and inspire transformative action.
Ceremony as Climate Healing
Across Turtle Island, Indigenous-led ceremonies are emerging—or re-emerging—as sacred responses to ecological loss and planetary crisis. These ceremonies do not attempt to “fix” grief or offer quick closure. Instead, they create sacred space to sit with the pain, acknowledge intergenerational trauma, and begin the process of relational repair with Mother Earth.
Some powerful examples include:
- Grassroots Indigenous communities across the Great Lakes, Prairies, and West Coast organize land-based grieving circles. These gatherings often involve fire keeping, songs, and shared storytelling, honouring ecological loss and cultural resurgence.
- Fasting ceremonies, long used for spiritual clarity and prayer, are now undertaken by youth and Elders alike in response to climate emergencies, including pipeline resistance, biodiversity loss, and drought. These fasts are often held on the land and accompanied by teachings, songs, and tobacco offerings.
Healing as Collective and Relational
Indigenous ceremonial responses to climate grief are profoundly relational. They are not individual acts of self-care, but collective acts of care for land, ancestors, and future generations. They reassert Indigenous sovereignty by centring traditional governance, gender roles, and spiritual protocols, while inviting emotional honesty and humility into spaces of climate discourse often dominated by technical language.
Recommendations for Readers
- Support Indigenous-Led Healing Events and Ceremonies
- Attend public ceremonies where invited, donate to ceremony organizers, and share their events. Respect protocols and follow the lead of Indigenous organizers—these are sacred spaces, not spectacles.
- Create Space for Grief in Your Climate Work
- Make room for emotional truth in your activism. Whether through storytelling, group reflection, or spiritual practice, recognize grief as a valid and necessary part of climate justice.
- Read Indigenous Voices on Climate and Loss
- Works like All Our Relations by Tanya Talaga explore the intersections of grief, cultural resurgence, and land-based healing. Reading Indigenous authors is one way to understand the emotional dimensions of climate change from lived experience.
- Practice Relational Accountability
- Ask yourself: Whose land am I on? What ceremonies have been practiced here? What responsibilities do I hold to this place and its people? Learning and acting from this position of relationship helps turn grief into grounded action.
Blog by Rye Karonhiowanen Barberstock
(Image Credit: Patrick Hendry, Unsplash)
The post Healing the Land, Healing Ourselves: Climate Grief and Indigenous Ceremonial Practices appeared first on Indigenous Climate Hub.
Healing the Land, Healing Ourselves: Climate Grief and Indigenous Ceremonial Practices
Climate Change
DeBriefed 1 August 2025: Trump targets ‘endangerment finding’; Floods and heatwaves; ‘Thirst’ exhibition
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Trump to overturn ‘endangerment finding’
EPA OVERTURNING: The Trump administration announced its plan to overturn the 2009 finding that has been the “central basis” for US action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the Associated Press reported. A new Environmental Protection Agency proposal would rescind the “endangerment finding”, which determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, according to the newswire. If the finding is repealed, it would “erase current limits” on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories and power plants, AP said.
‘MISLEADING’ REPORT: The proposal is supported by a new Department of Energy report that uses “misleading and inaccurate” statements to argue that climate science has “overstated” the risks of a warming planet, Politico reported. The report, which also argues that climate science is “underestimating” the societal benefits of burning fossil fuels, was written by five scientists who “are known” for “denying accepted climate science”, the outlet added.
‘WINDMILL DISGRACE’: Wind development on federal lands and waters may be halted by the Trump administration, Bloomberg reported. Interior secretary Doug Burgum ordered a comprehensive review of the agency’s approval process, it said. According to Renewable Energy News, the department said more than 3.5m acres offshore were designated as “wind energy areas” by the last administration and that “terminating” these areas is “safeguarding” local environments and economies from “unchecked development”. This followed from Trump’s recent comment that “windmills are a disgrace”, the publication added.
Floods and heatwaves
SEVERE FLOODING: Torrential rains triggered a devastating flood in northern Nigeria, leaving at least 23 people dead, Deutsche Welle reported. The flooding has displaced 5,560 people and left dozens injured, according to the National Emergency Management Agency. More than 200 people have been killed in floods in Nigeria since the start of the rainy season in May this year, according to DW. The outlet reported that scientists have said climate change is fuelling many of these extreme weather occurrences.
BEIJING RAINS: China faced “another deadly rainy season” after 60 people were killed following days of torrential rain in Northern Beijing, reported Reuters. The outlet said climate change has made extreme weather “more frequent and intense”. Elsewhere, floodwaters from the Indus and Chenab rivers have “inundated” more than a dozen villages across Pakistan’s Punjab province, said India’s Tribune.
RECORD TEMPERATURE: Japan recorded its hottest day on record as temperatures reached 41.2C in southwest Tokyo, Al Jazeera reported. There were 16 heat-related deaths and more than 10,800 people were hospitalised with heatstroke last week, the outlet said. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government issued an official holiday in seven of its provinces as temperatures topped 50C, said Gulf News.
‘MILLIONS’ INSIDE: Temperatures soaring in the US have led to “millions” of Americans being warned to stay inside as some areas reach 48.8C, noted Newsweek. Heat warnings and advisories have been issued by the National Weather Service, according to the outlet.
Around the world
- ENERGY PLEDGE: The European Union has pledged to buy $750bn of energy from the US in exchange for a lower tariff rate under its trade deal with Trump. “Significant purchases” of US oil, liquified natural gas and nuclear fuel to replace Russian fossil fuels are included in the deal, CNBC reported. The Financial Times quoted energy experts saying the deal is a “pie in the sky” given that “US fossil fuel supplies [in 2024] to the bloc accounted for just $75bn”.
- COP30 COSTS: The UN held an “urgent meeting” over “sky-high” accommodation costs ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, the last US climate negotiators have been fired by the Trump administration, leaving the nation with “no official presence” at the summit, said CNN.
- ‘MELTING RAPIDLY’: Glaciers in Turkey’s southeast are melting rapidly due to rising global temperatures “amid human-caused climate change”, Al Jazeera reported.
- ‘SEWAGE CRISIS’: The US and Mexico have signed a deal to end the Tijuana “sewage crisis”, committing to update outdated wastewater infrastructure to handle higher flows triggered by worse flooding, said Inside Climate News.
- RENEWABLE ENERGY: Australia’s government has pledged to “substantially increase” its renewable energy underwriting scheme following concerns the nation will struggle to meet its 2030 power target, noted the Guardian. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s government has voted to resume gas and oil drilling despite an “outcry” from the opposition and environmental groups, reported the New Zealand Herald.
- ‘UNHELPFUL TUSSEL’: UN climate chief Simon Stiell paid a visit to Australia and urged the nation and Turkey to resolve their “long-running tussle” over who will host the COP31 summit, calling the delay “unhelpful and unnecessary”, Reuters reported.
66.8 million
The hectares of intact tropical forest that overlaps with oil blocks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Earth Insight.
Latest climate research
- Climate change could make ‘droughts’ for wind power 15% longer | Carbon Brief
- A study of urban construction workers in Taiwan found that heat stress imposes “substantial economic burden” and results in productivity losses in the range of 29-41% | Nature Cities
- Drought will increasingly contribute to the collapse of many bird species that live in highly arid regions of the US | Biological Conservation
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
New analysis by Carbon Brief this week revealed that 2025 is on track to be the second or third hottest year on record. The chart above draws on data from five different research groups that report global surface temperature records to illustrate how 2025 saw the second-hottest first half of the year on record.
Spotlight
‘Thirst’ exhibition maps the water crisis
This week, Carbon Brief visits a London exhibition exploring the world’s worsening water crisis.
Intricate ink drawings on cotton paper explore interconnected issues in Nepal.
Global warming has melted glaciers in the region, causing flooding and infectious diseases, displacing human and non-human life.
Yet, through his drawings, Nepalese artist Karan Shrestha has created a mosaic of the Himalayan region that shows water as a signifier of extreme weather and a life-giving source to be shared.
His piece, “Water-giver, memory-keeper and the shifting forces”, is displayed at the Wellcome Collection for its “Thirst: In Search of Freshwater” exhibition.
Brought together by Wellcome curator and lecturer Janice Li, it features 125 objects that showcase the impact of climate change on water and its role in shaping health and ecosystems.
Li’s research into the etymology of “thirst” unravelled a global interpretation of water, reflecting the exhibition’s geographical breadth. She told Carbon Brief:
“Humans have faced really brutal and critical environmental crises and have, through a really deep innate knowledge of their own specific land, been able to devise monumental infrastructure to combat the crises they face.”
Just before Shrestha’s art in the exhibition are photographs taken by M’hammed Kilito.
In one picture, Kilito’s guide, Mustapha, looks into a dried-up well in a Moroccan oasis.
Climate change and human activities have resulted in the loss of two-thirds of oases in the country, according to information displayed at the exhibition.
Speaking about the photograph, Kilito told the Guardian that it looked like Mustapha was “praying for the return of something essential: water”.
Water adopts multiple faces in the exhibition: a vital yet scarce resource in certain pieces, a spiritual entity in others – and a destructive force.
Nothing makes the latter as clear as “Deluge” by photojournalist Gideon Mendel. Five screens display footage of the aftermath of severe floods around the world, captured by Mendel over 17 years.
Li told Carbon Brief:
“[Gideon] told me that, in the last two years, there’s always been a flood of that magnitude happening somewhere. He didn’t imagine that one day it would get to a point where he would have to choose which one to go to.”
Next to “Deluge” is a dome-like space where visitors can sit on bean bags and listen to glaciers melting in the Himalayas.
Though the exhibition confronts global water challenges, Li hopes it also reminds visitors of the resource’s beauty:
“Quite a few people told me they sit in the listening room for half an hour, really enjoying themselves and then guilt hits them because they’ve forgotten they’re listening to melting ice. But, this is the beauty of art, and a lot of beauty has come out of decay, destruction and deterioration because it also, sometimes, signals rebirth.”
Watch, read, listen
YAK HERDERS STRUGGLE: The Associated Press featured the stories of yak herders in India’s Himalayan mountains as climate change threatens their way of life.
PILOT ANXIETY: A Guardian documentary followed two airline pilots grappling with the climate impacts of their jobs.
‘IS DECARBONISATION DEAD?’: New York Times columnist Ezra Klein invited climate experts onto his podcast to discuss the future of renewable energy in the US.
Coming up
- 5-14 August: Second part of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to Develop an International Legally Binding Instrument on Plastic Pollution, Geneva, Switzerland
- 9 August: UN international day of the world’s Indigenous peoples
- 11-15 August:UN Environment Programme’s International Methane Earth Observatory at AmeriGeo Week 2015: Earth Observations for the Americas, Bogotá, Colombia
Pick of the jobs
- Climate Justice Standard Lab, research associate in forest carbon and climate justice | Salary: $25-35 an hour. Location: Remote
- The Church of England, net-zero carbon programme decarbonising churches lead | £59,248. Location: Remote
- UN Office for Project Services, country engagement specialist and regional coordinator for eastern europe, Santiago network | Salary: Unknown. Location: Geneva, Switzerland
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 1 August 2025: Trump targets ‘endangerment finding’; Floods and heatwaves; ‘Thirst’ exhibition appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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