Coal releases significantly more CO2 when burned than oil, weight for weight. Looking at per capita CO2 emissions for different sources of CO2, it comes as no surprise that coal tops the chart ahead of oil.
What Fig.1 doesn't show is that globally, far more oil is being consumed than coal. The figures for 2023 are:
oil - 54,564TWh
coal - 45,564TWh
gas - 40,101TWh
(A terawatt hour (TWh) is a unit of energy that measures the amount of electricity or heat produced, and is equal to one trillion watt hours. It's a common way to measure large amounts of electrical energy.)
The world's focus may be on reducing coal-fired power stations, but the consumption of oil continues to rise in Asia's fast growing economies. Oil is fast becoming the fossil fuel of greatest concern.
Figure 1
Figure 2
The International Energy Agency reported last year that global oil demand is still increasing despite the slowdown in many developed nations as they transition to renewable energy sources. This slowdown is offset by China and India, the world's two most populous countries.
In China, however, the IEA expects oil demand to peak by 2030 and fall thereafter. This is due to the rapid takeup of electric vehicles (EVs) in China - 45% of total vehicle sales in 2024 were EVs - together with slow economic growth and a falling population.
India, however, is and will be thirsty for oil for some time to come. It is expected to account for 25% of global oil demand in 2025 and beyond. Its consumption increased in 2024 by a staggering 220,000 barrels per day (bpd). Compare that with China's 90,000bpd growth. India's strong economy, increasing population and emerging middle class are fuelling this demand, a trend that is set to last for many years.
OPEC's World Oil Outlook says that India, Asia outside China, Africa, and the Middle East will be the key sources of incremental demand in the coming years. Combined demand in these four regions is set to increase by 22 million bpd between 2023 and 2050.
That is the concerning picture of oil demand/consumption. A fossil fuel emitting 1.51 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere each year for every human on the planet. 12 billion tonnes a year. In the Slowing Climate Change section of this website, we'll see how technology can cut this figure drastically in a very short time.
Just as there are vast reserves of unmined coal, so there are vast reserves of oil which will almost certainly be tapped before the end of this century if not sooner.
Figure 3
OPEC - a group of 12 oil-producing member countries - have recently cut oil production owing to falling demand and declining oil prices. However, this fall in output was more than offset by non-OPEC countries who increased their output in 2023 by a significant amount:
United States +8.5%,
Brazil +12 %,
China +2.1%,
Norway +6.4% ,
Iran (exempted from OPEC quotas) +10%
Nigeria +6%.
These countries are planning ahead. India, Africa, jet fuel and feedstocks for the petrochemical industry (petrochemical feedstocks are raw materials used to make chemicals, plastics, and synthetic rubber) are going to maintain a high demand for oil for years to come. In anticipation, total supply capacity is forecast to rise to nearly 114 million barrels a day by 2030 when global demand will be around 108 million barrels a day. A number of countries coloured orange in Figure 3 will be turning yellow long before 2050 and much of the oil lying below ground in 2025 will end up contributing to atmospheric CO2.
Title photo: By I, Luca Galuzzi, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2161622