Global carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise

The values of carbon dioxide emissions indicate that the concentration of this gas continues to increase. It is unlikely that the warming threshold that was intended to be avoided will not be exceeded in the next decade.

The objectives set regarding the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere seem distant and difficult to meet.

There is now a broad consensus in the science associated with climate change on the need to avoid exceeding the 1.5°C warming threshold compared to pre-industrial levels. But everything indicates that the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) continues to increase, and it is possible that this value will be exceeded at the planetary level within the next 10 years.

According to Live Science and citing a report prepared by an international team of more than 100 scientists, global CO2 emissions have not decreased enough to reach this critical goal. In quantitative terms, if zero emissions were to be achieved by 2050, it would now require annual CO2 reductions as drastic as those that occurred at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when flights were significantly reduced and economies were paralyzed.

Today mainstream technology is far from supplanting most cars around the world. Pierre Friedlingstein, Professor of Mathematical Modelling of Climate Systems at the University of Exeter (UK) and lead author of the report, told Live Science that “the CO2 emissions that cause global warming show no sign of abating, and that the measures taken in recent years have not been sufficient to reverse the trajectory of global emissions.”

The high contribution of fossil fuels

On November 10, the Global Carbon Budget report was published online with an annual update that tracks global CO2 emissions. There it is concluded that the projections for this year are bleak. It is estimated that CO2 will average 417.2 parts per million.

The values indicated in the report represent a growth in CO2 concentration of 51% above pre-industrial levels. Global emissions will amount to about 40.6 billion tonnes. The report completes the year with projections, although it is estimated that these values will not differ much from those finally measured in the last months of the year.

The biggest contributors are fossil fuels. The report highlights that global oil consumption has increased by 2.2% compared to the previous year, especially due to the recovery of the aviation industry after the fall of COVID-19. Coal use worldwide has also increased by 1%, while the use of natural gas has decreased slightly. But the use of fossil fuels is not uniform across countries; while emissions rose in the United States and India in 2022, emissions plummeted in China and the European Union.

Good and bad

The increases in U.S. emissions are likely due to the recovery of industries following the COVID-19 slowdown, scientists say, while spikes in India are related to progress in the country’s current development. “India is the country that needs to catch up in terms of infrastructure, construction and energy consumption per capita, which means rapid growth in energy consumption that cannot yet be fully covered by renewables,” says Jan Ivar Korsbakken, senior researcher at the Centre for International Climate and Environment Research in Oslo, Norway, and also a co-author of the study.

On the other hand, the decline in fossil fuel emissions from the European Union may be due to an economic slowdown that began in 2021 and worsened when Russia invaded Ukraine. The increased interest in solar energy may also play a role. Similarly, the decline in emissions in China is mainly due to persistent economic problems following the COVID-19 crisis and the debt crisis in the construction sector, but also reflects a promising uptick in the use of solar and wind energy.

Former carbon sinks, oceans and forests, which collectively absorb about half of our fossil fuel emissions, are also stretched to the limit. Rising global temperatures and changes in weather patterns can weaken this CO2 uptake. The researchers calculated that climate change over the past decade has made absorption 10% lower than it would otherwise have been.

Source: Meteored