Greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union fell by more than 8 percent in 2023, driven by a growth in renewable energy sources.

The drop is the second-largest annual decline in decades, behind 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to a reduction of almost 10 percent, according to the European Commission. It follows a decrease of just 2 percent in 2022 compared to 2021. Emissions have fallen by 37 percent since 1990, despite GDP growth during the same period of 68 percent, showing the de-linking between the two factors, the European Commission said.

“We are on track to meet our 2030 targets to reduce emissions by at least 55 percent if this momentum is maintained,” said Tim McPhie, the European Commission’s spokesman for climate action and energy. “These positive results were driven in particular by the impressive growth in renewable energy sources.”

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Falling emissions in the bloc suggest that it has managed to achieve a difficult objective for the energy transition — continuous economic growth alongside emissions reductions. In particular, emissions from electricity production and heating decreased by 24 percent in 2023 compared to 2022. Renewable energy was the leading source of electricity production in the EU in 2023, accounting for nearly 45 percent of the total.

In the buildings sector, emissions fell by about 5.5 percent; agricultural emissions fell by 2 percent; and transport emissions fell by less than 1 percent, the Commission said. The EU's natural carbon sink also increased by 8.5 percent in 2023, reversing a trend of decline.

In the first three quarters of this year, estimated CO2 emissions fell by a further 9 percent compared to the same period last year, said Isaac Levi, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a non-profit.

“Most of the success is down to developments in renewable energy generation, as well as new installed capacity, mostly from solar and wind,” he said. “That's led to a reduction in coal and gas power generation. Coal consumption for other sectors we've seen drop as well, including for the production of steel.”

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The decline meant that the EU’s contribution to global emissions has fallen significantly, from 15 percent of global emissions in 1990 to just over 6 percent last year. Per capita emissions are still higher than the global average, at 7.26 tonnes per person compared to the world average of 6.59.