Fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions created by burning oil, gas and coal are predicted to reach a new high in 2024, .
According to the latest annual global carbon budget assessment by the UK-based Global Carbon Project, a team of scientists tracking emissions of the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, both fossil fuel use and .
Global carbon emissions from burning and using fossil fuels alone are projected to rise 0.8% in 2024, reaching 37.4 billion tons.
This comes amid the in Baku, Azerbaijan, which are negotiating ways to meet the targets set in Paris in 2015 and rapidly reduce emissions to net zero to limit temperature rise.
“Time is running out to meet the Paris Agreement goals – and world leaders meeting at must bring about rapid and deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions to give us a chance of staying well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming above pre-industrial levels,” said Pierre Friedlingstein of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, which led the study.
Emissions rising again after decade of stagnation
While fossil CO2 emissions have risen over the last 10 years, land-use change CO2 emissions have declined on average, keeping overall emissions approximately level over the period.
But this year, carbon emissions from both fossil fuels and land-use change are set to rise. This is partly due to drought, and emissions both from deforestation and forest fires during the predominant .
With over 40 billion tons of CO2 currently being released annually, atmospheric carbon levels continue to rise, and to drive dangerous global heating.
2024 is already predicted to be the . It is poised to surpass the record-breaking heat of 2023, with several consecutive months recording temperatures above 1.5 degrees Celsius.
At the current rate of emissions, the 120 scientists contributing to the Global Carbon Budget report estimate a 50% chance temperature rise will
In 2024, events linked to global heating, including deadly , torrential flooding, tropical cyclones, wildfires and severe drought, have caused devastating human and economic losses.
“The are becoming increasingly dramatic, yet we still see no sign that burning of fossil fuels has peaked,” said Friedlingstein.
Despite emissions rise, climate action is succeeding
Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor at Exeter University’s School of Environmental Sciences, said the latest data also shows evidence of effective and “widespread climate action.”
“The growing penetration of renewables and electric cars displacing fossil fuels, and decreasing deforestation emissions in the past decades” were confirmed for the first time, she said.
“There are many signs of positive progress at the country level, and a feeling that a peak in global fossil CO2 emissions is imminent, but the global peak remains elusive,” said Glen Peters, of the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Oslo.
The researchers pointed to 22 countries, including many European nations, the US and the UK, where fossil fuel emissions have fallen during the past decade, even as their economies grow.
“Progress in all countries needs to accelerate fast enough to put global emissions on a downward trajectory towards net zero,” said Peters.
Edited by: Tamsin Walker
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