2. Electricity
Most large grids emit less per kWh than they did in 2005, and the biggest improvements came almost entirely from burning less coal.
A coal grid runs around 800–900 g of CO₂ per kWh, a modern gas grid around 400, and a nuclear or hydro grid under 50.
Spain took 329 g out of every kWh (−69%), Poland 324 g and the UK 319 g (−60%). The mechanism is almost entirely one fuel: the UK went from 34% coal-fired to 1%, Spain from 27% to 1% and Poland from 91% to 54%. The countries that got dirtier did the same in reverse: Vietnam went from 21% coal to 50% and Indonesia from 39% to 61%, while their generation more than doubled.
France barely registers, which is the measure working: its grid was already nuclear at 86 g in 2005, and it still found another 45 g.
Of the 108 countries generating more than 10 TWh, 70% are cleaner per kWh than they were in 2005. But a cleaner grid is compatible with rising total emissions if the grid grows faster than it cleans (finding 7), and electricity is only about a third of energy use.
So what. Grid carbon intensity is what the location-based Scope 2 emission factor measures, the number a multi-site company multiplies its metered kWh by to produce the electricity line in a CSRD, SECR or CDP disclosure. Across the largest grids it runs from Norway at 30 g/kWh to South Africa at 717 g/kWh, a 24× spread: an identical 100 GWh/year site reports roughly 3 kt CO₂e in one and 72 kt in the other, having changed nothing but its address.
Who acts: sustainability reporting, and site selection long before them. Cost of getting it wrong: a site chosen on power price alone that adds tens of kilotonnes to a group total nobody re-forecast, and under CSRD an audited one.