After staying flat for nearly two decades, electricity use is starting to rise again, and the boom in wind and solar power hasn’t kept pace.
America’s efforts to cut its climate change pollution stalled in 2024, with greenhouse gas emissions dropping just a fraction, 0.2 percent, compared to the year before, according to estimates published Thursday by the Rhodium Group, a research firm.
Despite continued rapid growth in solar and wind power, emissions levels stayed relatively flat last year because demand for electricity surged nationwide, which led to a spike in the amount of natural gas burned by power plants.
The fact that emissions didn’t decline much means the United States is even further off-track from hitting President Biden’s goal of slashing greenhouse gases 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Scientists say all major economies would have to cut their emissions deeply this decade to keep global warming at relatively low levels.
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions compared to climate targets
Since 2005, United States emissions have fallen roughly 20 percent, a significant drop at a time when the economy has also expanded. But to meet its climate goals, U.S. emissions would need to decline nearly 10 times as fast each year as they’ve fallen over the past decade. That seems increasingly unlikely, experts say, especially since President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised to dismantle Mr. Biden’s climate policies and promote the production of fossil fuels, the burning of which generates greenhouse gases.
“On the one hand, it is notable that we’ve now seen two years in a row where the U.S. economy grew but emissions went down,” said Ben King, an associate director at the Rhodium Group. “But it’s far from enough to achieve our climate targets.”