© AP
Oil, gas and coal accounted for nearly three-quarters of the growth in energy demand last year
Extreme weather drove growth in energy demand last year to its highest level since 2010, triggering warnings of a "vicious cycle" fuelled by reliance on heating and cooling systems that could worsen the world's carbon emissions crisis.
Energy group BP said in its closely watched annual market review that energy consumption grew 2.9 per cent in 2018, led by China and the US, despite modest economic growth and strengthening oil and gas prices.
The rise spurred a 2 per cent increase in carbon emissions, the fastest since 2011 and equivalent to increasing the global passenger car fleet by a third, or just under 400m. "If there is a link between the growing levels of carbon in the atmosphere and the types of weather patterns observed in 2018, this would raise the possibility of a worrying vicious cycle," Spencer Dale, BP's chief economist, said in a speech on Tuesday afternoon.
The US saw an unusually high number of very hot or cold days last year, the most since the 1950s. China and Russia also saw greater fluctuations in temperature in 2018. Such patterns could cause stronger growth in energy demand and carbon emissions as households and businesses seek to offset the effects, Mr Dale warned.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect, trapping heat and increasing average global temperatures. Changes in atmospheric currents linked to climate change are also thought to contribute to extreme cold weather snaps in some areas.
Comment: The situation in the US is critical in the US, and this could be due to vast swathes of the population having inadequate access to healthcare, but since we are seeing similar deterioration in living standards throughout the Western world the blame lies within the system itself which is utterly ponerized: