Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have been nearly flat for three years in a row — a “great help,” but not enough to stave off dangerous global warming, a report said yesterday.
Emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide stayed level last year at 36.3 billion tonnes and were projected to rise “only slightly,” by 0.2 percent this year, according to the annual Global Carbon Budget report compiled by teams of scientists from around the world.
“This third year of almost no growth in emissions is unprecedented at a time of strong economic growth,” research leader Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia said.
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Driven largely by reduced coal use in China, this was a “clear and unprecedented break” with the preceding decade’s fast emissions growth, at a rate of about 2.3 percent per year from 2004 to 2013, before dipping to 0.7 percent in 2014.
“This is a great help for tackling climate change, but it is not enough,” Le Quere said.
For the world’s nations to make true on the global pact to limit average global warming to 2?C over pre-Industrial Revolution levels, emissions must do more than level off, the study found.
A decrease of 0.9 percent per year was needed to 2030.
The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has continued to grow, the report said, hitting a record level of 23 gigatonnes last year that looked set to reach 25 gigatonnes this year.
The analysis was published in the journal Earth System Science Data, to coincide with the UN climate conference underway in Morocco.
Climate envoys are gathered in Marrakesh to put plans in place to execute the so-called Paris Agreement concluded a year ago.
It envisions a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas-producing coal, oil and gas use for energy.
The new report said humanity has emitted 2,075 gigatonnes since 1870 — adding 40 gigatonnes this year alone.
“We have already used more than two-thirds of the emissions quota to keep climate change well below 2?C,” it said. “The remaining quota would be used up in less than 30 years at the current emissions level.”
Under the Paris Agreement’s predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, rich nations had to meet emissions reduction targets.
Developing countries were excused as they needed coal and oil to fuel rapidly growing populations and economies.
China, despite not having any Kyoto targets, has been fast moving away from coal, driven in large part by major air pollution concerns.
After growth of 5.3 percent per year from 2005 to 2014, China recorded a decline of 0.7 percent last year and is set for a 0.5 percent drop this year.
This decline in the world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluter “largely accounts” for the global trend, the report said.
The world’s No. 2 emitter, the US, decreased emissions by 2.6 percent last year, with a fall of 1.7 percent projected for next year.
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