U.S. coal-fired power fell by record levels in 2019, a drop that was almost entirely responsible for the country’s 2.1% decline in greenhouse gases last year, according to preliminary data from the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm.
2019 was a “really brutal year for coal, and that is driving the emissions reductions that we see,” said Hannah Pitt, a senior analyst with Rhodium who manages the group’s U.S. Climate Service.
Coal-fired power declined 18% in 2019, according to the new research released Tuesday, in which Rhodium outlined preliminary emissions estimates for 2019. That puts U.S. coal generation at its lowest level since 1975.
Those coal retirements had a “pretty sizable” impact on emissions levels, Pitt said. Rhodium’s preliminary estimates find U.S. power sector emissions down nearly 10%, a significant reversal from the sector’s 1.2% emissions bump in 2018.
Nonetheless, the U.S. is still far from the emissions reductions target set by the Obama administration under the Paris climate agreement. That target would have required a 26% to 28% drop in greenhouse gases below 2005 levels by 2025. The Trump administration abandoned that target and has taken steps to withdraw from the Paris deal later this year.
Rhodium estimates U.S. economywide emissions are 12.3% lower than in 2005. To reach the Obama-era Paris target, the United States would have to cut emissions between 2.8% and 3.2% each year for the next six years, a pace Pitt says is speedy but doable, though only with significantly more robust federal policy.
Overall, Pitt said the 2019 numbers are better than 2018, when Rhodium found economywide emissions rose between 1.5% and 2.5%. But she also said the data also carries some important caveats and puts a spotlight on sectors other than power generation that haven’t cut emissions nearly as much.
For example, Rhodium’s data found emissions from transportation, the largest emitting sector in the U.S. economy, declined just 0.3% in 2019. Emissions from both the industrial manufacturing and the building sectors rose in 2019 by 0.6% and 2.2%, respectively, though at a rate slower than in 2018.
The path to significantly reduce emissions in those sectors is also far less clear than in the power sector.
“There are drivers in the power sector that are pushing lower-carbon options,” Pitt said, citing market trends such as cheap natural gas and falling renewable energy costs, as well as policies such as clean energy tax credits and state-level clean energy standards.
“In transportation, industry, and buildings, there’s much less progress both on the policy front and the technology front,” she added.
For example, few policies have even been proposed, on either the federal or state level, to cut emissions from the industrial sector, in part because the sector is large, its sources are diverse, and there are few easy or cheap technology solutions to date.
Pitt also said Rhodium’s data shows that, for the most part, emissions from transportation and industry aren’t decoupled from the economy.
In other words, “stronger economic growth means more travel and more manufacturing, and because those alternatives aren’t there, the only way to go is to burn more fossil fuels,” Pitt said.
Slower economic growth in 2019 is part of the reason industrial and building emissions didn’t rise as much, compared to 2018, she added.
