Gas power plants are mushrooming all over the country, with almost a 20 percent gas capacity gain of 90,000 megawatts from 2017–2020 alone. Bolstered by rising efficiency, the more that we have turned to natural gas, the more our CO2 emissions have plummeted. Our power emissions are now the lowest they have been since 1985. As the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has shown, electricity is unique in that it is the only sector where emissions are actually declining, thanks mostly to natural gas.
In fact, the U.S. has slashed CO2 emissions much faster than our European allies that adopted the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions in 1997. Preferring markets over incessant regulation, non-signatory U.S. has been reducing emissions faster than any other nation on Earth. All the while, our economy has boomed nearly 60 percent to $18 trillion (real 2010 $).
Indeed, the climate group Carbon Brief reports that more natural gas use is the primary driver for declining CO2 emissions in the U.S. power sector. Gas has cut 50 percent more emissions since 2005 than wind and solar power combined. Natural gas is the reason why President Obama’s now pulled back Clean Power Plan has become completely irrelevant: We are set to surpass his reduction goals a decade early. Natural gas is the only fossil fuel that actually increases in demand under modeled scenarios that keep the rise in the global average temperature to below the critical 2°C threshold.
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