World's Biggest Economies Ramp Up Their Emissions

Global CO2 emissions are climbing after an encouraging plateau between 2014 and 2016, according to Capgemini's World Energy Markets Observatory report. In 2017, they grew 1.6 percent before climbing 2 percent last year. Nearly all countries contributed to the problem which was driven by booming energy consumption from fossil fuels. Some of the biggest increases were seen in India, China and the United States.

In India, CO2 spiked 6.3 percent while the U.S. and China registered increases of 3.4 and 2.3 percent respectively. All of those countries saw their annual energy consumption levels climb between 3.5 and 4 percent last year. Meanwhile, clean energy investment sank 39 percent in China and 6 percent in the U.S. though it did climb 10 percent in India.

Not all of the report's findings were negative, however, with the EU recording a 2.5 percent decrease in its emissions in 2018. Other positive news included 14.5 percent growth in renewable power generation along with falling installation costs for wind and solar. Electric vehicle sales are also surging, going up 79 percent in China, 79 percent in the U.S. and 34 percent in the EU. Despite those positives, the report states that the path to climate change objectives remains very uncertain and that more action is required to mitigate the crisis while maintaining security of energy supply.