Two years after President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement, the U.S. saw the greatest decline in carbon dioxide emissions on a country basis, according to the International Energy Agency’s report on global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. Thanks to an exceptional decrease in emissions in advanced economies, global emissions finally flatlined after three years of increasing.
Spearheading that charge was the U.S., which decreased carbon dioxide emissions by a staggering 140 million tons, or 2.9%, thanks to vast increases of natural gas generation. Since our peak in 2000, the IEA reports that emissions are down 1 gigaton, “the largest absolute decline by any country over that period.”
Thanks to its nonlegally binding emissions standards, the Paris agreement was a prime piece of virtue signaling, but it never was going to affect emissions standards. Yet, technological innovation and markets did so instead.
“Economic growth in advanced economies averaged 1.7% in 2019, but total energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 3.2%,” the IEA writes. “Generation from coal-fired plants in advanced economies declined by nearly 15% as a result of continued growth of renewables, coal-to-gas fuel switching, a rise in nuclear power and weaker electricity demand.”
Of course, this makes sense. Nuclear is the single-most efficient, long-term source of carbon-neutral energy, and natural gas and renewables excel in the short term, especially as research and development make the latter cheaper. On some level, regulations and market-oriented approaches such as carbon taxes in Europe must have helped, but fundamentally, market forces are spearheading our fight against climate change.
Proponents of the Green New Deal may claim that nuclear and market-oriented solutions don’t work, but the evidence is conclusive. Capitalism may very well save the world.
