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Carbon emissions hit new high: warning from COP27
This came in on my Nature News Brief feed:
Carbon emissions hit new high: warning from COP27
Subtitle:
Fresh data released at the climate summit show global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are soaring despite energy crisis.
Some excerpts:
Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are projected to increase 1% in 2022, hitting a new record of 37.5 billion tonnes, scientists announced today at the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. If the trend continues, humanity could pump enough CO2 into the atmosphere to warm Earth to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial temperatures in just nine years. The 2015 Paris climate agreement set this aspirational limit, seeking to avoid the most serious consequences for the planet.
“Nine years is not very long,” says Corinne Le Quéré, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, and a member of the Global Carbon Project, which conducted the analysis. There is clearly no sign of the kind of decrease that is needed to meet international goals, she says, and even with aggressive action, climate models suggest the world is likely to at least temporarily cross the 1.5 °C threshold sometime in the 2030s...
...The emissions increase comes as the world grapples with an energy crisis spurred by the war in Ukraine, while also continuing to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. One contributing factor, scientists say, is a spike in coal consumption, driven in part by European efforts to make up for the loss of natural-gas shipments from Russia. Oil consumption has also increased owing to renewed air travel as governments lift restrictions. Although substantially lower than the 3% annual increases in total fossil CO2 emissions experienced during the early 2000s, this year’s projected 1% increase is more than double the average growth rate of the past decade.
The fastest emissions growth comes from India, where rising coal and oil consumption are driving an estimated 6% increase compared with 2021 (see ‘Emissions update’). Notably, emissions from China — the world’s largest emitter — are projected to fall by nearly 1%; the country’s coal use is projected to remain flat this year owing to strict COVID-19 lockdowns that have curtailed economic growth. Overall, though, scientists estimate that emissions from coal burning will increase by around 1% and could set a new record, driven mostly by a renewed reliance on coal-fired power plants in India and Europe...
“Nine years is not very long,” says Corinne Le Quéré, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, and a member of the Global Carbon Project, which conducted the analysis. There is clearly no sign of the kind of decrease that is needed to meet international goals, she says, and even with aggressive action, climate models suggest the world is likely to at least temporarily cross the 1.5 °C threshold sometime in the 2030s...
...The emissions increase comes as the world grapples with an energy crisis spurred by the war in Ukraine, while also continuing to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. One contributing factor, scientists say, is a spike in coal consumption, driven in part by European efforts to make up for the loss of natural-gas shipments from Russia. Oil consumption has also increased owing to renewed air travel as governments lift restrictions. Although substantially lower than the 3% annual increases in total fossil CO2 emissions experienced during the early 2000s, this year’s projected 1% increase is more than double the average growth rate of the past decade.
The fastest emissions growth comes from India, where rising coal and oil consumption are driving an estimated 6% increase compared with 2021 (see ‘Emissions update’). Notably, emissions from China — the world’s largest emitter — are projected to fall by nearly 1%; the country’s coal use is projected to remain flat this year owing to strict COVID-19 lockdowns that have curtailed economic growth. Overall, though, scientists estimate that emissions from coal burning will increase by around 1% and could set a new record, driven mostly by a renewed reliance on coal-fired power plants in India and Europe...
A graphic from the article:
Note that this graphic only refers to carbon emissions as dangerous fossil fuel waste and does not largely account for land use changes, thought to contribute about another ten billion tons of CO2 per year.
Actually, as in the case in that anti-nuke hellhole, Germany, and other places the so called "Energy crisis" has actually caused people to substitute coal for gas after substituting gas (and now coal) for nuclear.
If someone with an alcohol problem substitutes beer for scotch, and shaves or puts on make up before heading out to the bar that person isn't "cured" of alcoholism.
Similarly the de facto substitution of gas for coal with some added wind and solar lipstick and other "prettying up" renewable makeup didn't address climate change, nor is it addressing climate change.