6 years after the adoption of the Paris Agreement, this publication offers a unique synthesis of climate action at the global level in the major emission sectors: energy, transport, buildings, industry, waste, land use.
The eruption of the Covid-19 pandemic plunged the world into its first recession since 2008, and led to a record drop in global emissions in 2020 (-5% compared to 2019). This unprecedented shock and the ensuing economic recovery reveal some very distinct regional profiles when looking at the breaks in emissions trends since the Paris Agreement: in Europe and the Americas, the sharp drop in emissions accelerated a structural downward trend, while the increase in emissions from the biggest emitting Asian countries only slowed slightly. Since the end of 2020, the economic turnaround has seen high-carbon activities pick up rapidly. Among the biggest emitters, dependency on coal draws a very clear line between those regions moving away from it (United States, Europe), where the rise in emissions has not eclipsed the decrease resulting from the pandemic, and those regions where coal still has the support of public authorities (Asia-Pacific), to the point that it is the main reason behind a spike in emissions to levels higher than 2019.
