Global CO2 emissions to hit record high in 2024, report says

13/11/2024 11:16

        Global carbon dioxide emissions, including those from burning fossil fuels, are set to hit a record high this year, pulling the world further off course from averting more destructive climate extremes, scientists said on Wednesday.
        
        The Global Carbon Budget report, published during the U.N.'s COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, said global CO2 emissions are set to total 41.6 billion metric tons in 2024, up from 40.6 billion tons last year.
        
        The bulk of these emissions are from burning coal, oil and gas. Those emissions would total 37.4 billion tons in 2024, up by 0.8% in 2023, the report said.
        The rest are from land use, a category that includes deforestation and forest fires. The report by more than 80 institutions was led by the University of Exeter in Britain.
        
        "We don't see a sign of fossil fuel emissions peaking in 2024," said lead author Pierre Friedlingstein, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter. Without immediate and steep emissions cuts worldwide, "we will just go straight into the 1.5C target, we'll just pass it and continue," he said.
        
        Countries agreed under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to stop global temperatures rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to avoid climate change's worst impacts.
        
        This would require steep emissions cuts every year from now until 2030 and beyond.
        
        Instead, fossil fuel emissions have climbed over the last decade. Land use emissions had declined in this period - until this year, when a severe drought in the Amazon caused forest fires, driving up annual land use emissions by 13.5% to 4.2 billion tons.