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Carbon Dioxide Emissions on Steady Upward Trend

Steve Baragona

   Carbon dioxide emissions rose in 2019 for the third straight year,
   according to the latest Global Carbon Project estimate, and do not look
   set to fall before the end of the next decade.

   This is more bad news for United Nations negotiators in Madrid to
   consider as they aim to hammer out rules for implementing the 2015
   Paris international agreement on limiting climate change.

   This year's 0.6% growth in CO2 emissions is slower than the previous
   two years. Steep declines in coal use in the United States and Europe,
   combined with weaker global economic growth, were behind the slowdown,
   the report says.

   But slowing growth is not enough. A recent [1]United Nations report
   said emissions must decline by at least 2.7% per year to keep the
   planet from overheating.

   Emissions look likely to continue in the wrong direction for years to
   come, according to Stanford University Earth scientist Rob Jackson,
   chair of the Global Carbon Project, the international research
   consortium that published the findings Tuesday in [2]Earth System
   Science Data.

   "I am, I have to confess, not very optimistic that in a five-to-year
   timescale, we'll see a peak in emissions," he said. "I hope I'm wrong.
   I really hope I'm wrong."

   Widening gap

   The data follow a bleak report from the United Nations on the widening
   gap between what the world needs to do to prevent the worst impacts of
   climate change and what countries actually are doing to meet their
   Paris pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

References

   1. https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2019
   2. https://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/11/1783/2019/

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