US efforts to reduce climate change pollution stalled in 2024, with greenhouse gas emissions falling just a fraction, 0.2 percent, from the year before. according to estimates research firm Rhodium Group announced on Thursday.

Despite continued rapid growth in solar and wind power, emissions levels remained relatively flat last year as demand for electricity rose across the country, leading to a jump in the amount of natural gas burned by power plants.

The fact that emissions haven’t fallen much means the United States is still a long way from meeting President Biden’s goal of cutting greenhouse gases 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Scientists say all major economies would have to cut their emissions deeply this decade to keep global warming at relatively low levels.

Since 2005, United States emissions have fallen roughly 20 percent, a significant decline at a time when the economy has also expanded. But to meet its climate goals, U.S. emissions would have to fall nearly 10 times faster each year than they have been falling over the past decade. That seems increasingly unlikely, experts say, especially since President-elect Donald J. Trump promised to dismantle Biden’s climate policy and promote the production of fossil fuels, the burning of which creates greenhouse gases.

“On the one hand, it’s significant that we’ve seen two years in a row where the U.S. economy has grown but emissions have declined,” said Ben King, associate director at Rhodium Group. “But that’s far from enough to meet our climate goals.”

The biggest reason for the decline in US emissions in recent years is that power companies have retired their older, dirtier coal plants and their replacement with cheaper and less polluting natural gas, wind and solar energy. This trend mostly continued last year, with a few unexpected ups and downs.

National demand for electricity, which has remained more or less flat for two decades, suddenly jumped by about 3 percent in 2024, in large part because the summer’s heat prompted many Americans to crank up their air conditioners. A smaller factor was that tech companies are building data centers that use more energy in states like Virginia and Texas.

While power companies installed large numbers of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries last year to meet rising demand, natural gas use also rose to record levels, while coal use fell only slightly. The net result is that emissions from the energy sector increased by an estimated 0.2 percent, according to the Rhodium Group.

At the same time, transport, the country’s biggest source of greenhouse gases, saw emissions rise by 0.8 percent last year. Gasoline and jet fuel consumption rose as Americans continued to drive and fly more after the pandemic. Almost 10 percent of new car sales in 2024 were electric vehicles that pollute the environment lessbut these models still make up a small part of the total number of cars on the road and have yet to make a significant impact on traffic emissions.

On the other hand, emissions from the U.S. industrial sector — which includes steel, cement and chemicals — fell 1.8 percent in 2024. Part of that may have been the result of lost production, as two hurricanes and a blow to the nation’s ports disrupted some factory activity. in the fall, said Mr. King.

“It’s a reminder that there’s always some unevenness in the shows,” said Mr. King. “It is not just a question of how many electric vehicles are on the roads or how much solar energy we have installed. Much of our economy still relies on fossil fuels.”

One of the most striking findings in this year’s data was that emissions from oil and gas operations fell by roughly 3.7 percent in 2024. Although the United States produced record amounts of oil and near-record amounts of natural gas last year, it appears that many companies have suppressed the leakage of methane, which is the main component of natural gas and which can penetrate into the atmosphere and significantly contribute to global warming.

Over the past few years, the Biden administration and several states have passed new regulations requiring oil and gas producers to detect and fix methane leaks. Many companies also have financial incentives to capture methane for sale instead of releasing it into the air.

Between 2014 and 2024, U.S. companies appear to have reduced the amount of methane that escaped, for every cubic foot of gas they produced, by 40 percent, according to the Rhodium Group.

A few experts have estimated that greenhouse gases produced in the United States could begin to fall sharply in the coming years if many clean energy policies remain in place, notably the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into low-carbon energy technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear reactors, green hydrogen and batteries.

Although Mr. Trump has promised to end many of Mr. Biden’s subsidies and tax breaks for electric vehicles and low-carbon energy, remains to be seen will Congress agree.

That law has not yet had a big impact on emissions in the country, said Mr. King, since it takes time to open new factories and build power plants. But, he said, the data shows that low-carbon energy and transportation now account for a full 5 percent of total U.S. private investment.

“It’s a leading indicator that things are changing fast,” he said.