Fitch says decarbonisation of global economy is progressing far too slowly by Reuters

(Refiles to add dropped letter to final word.)

LONDON (Reuters) – Decarbonisation of the global economy is progressing too slowly and while there have been improvements among major developed economies, emerging markets have failed to make the cuts, Fitch Ratings warned in a report on Wednesday.

Global CO2 emissions rose by 1.8% last year, compared to global gross domestic product growth of 2.9%, the report said.

The ratio of emissions to GDP fell by just over 1%, broadly in line with the average annual decline over the last 25 years, and well below the 8% annual decline needed in 2020-2030 to reach net-zero targets by 2050. , the report added.

Fitch noted that while emissions in 10 developed economies fell to their lowest level since 1970, emerging markets as a whole failed to make any progress toward decarbonization — CO2 emissions and GDP of 10 emerging markets tracked by Fitch rising 4.7% last year.

“The lack of progress in decarbonisation in emerging markets is particularly concerning given faster GDP growth and the growing share of global energy consumption,” Fitch said.

They said one of the reasons for the poor performance of emerging markets was insufficient investment in clean energy projects, especially in emerging markets excluding China.

(This story has been updated to correct the spelling of “China” in paragraph 6)