Global carbon emissions remained at record levels in 2022

Global carbon emissions in 2022 remain high, with no sign of the reduction that is so badly needed to meet the desired goal of limiting temperature rise to one and a half degrees Celsius.

In particular, emissions from burning fossil fuels are likely to set a new record this year, up 1% from 2021.

If these emission levels continue, there is now a 50% chance that the temperature rise will move above 1.5 degrees within the next nine years (to 2031), according to the approximately 100 scientists of the international Global Carbon Project. To date, the temperature has risen by 1.1 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels and has already caused major climate disasters.

The new report predicts that total global carbon dioxide emissions this year will reach 40.6 billion tonnes (gigatons), almost flat from 2015. But carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in particular will increase by 1% over 2021, reaching 36.6 gigatons, slightly above pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Dioxide emissions from land-use change (especially deforestation), mainly in Brazil, Indonesia and Congo, are estimated at 3.9 gigatons in 2022.

Oil will be the largest contributor to the overall increase in carbon emissions this year. Carbon emissions are expected to decline in 2022 in China (-0.9%) and the European Union (-0.8%), but increase in the US (1.5%) and the rest of the world (1.7%) .

Land and oceans that absorb and store carbon naturally continue to remove about half of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere. Although the carbon balance shows a relative improvement compared to the 2000s (when fossil fuel emissions were growing at an average annual rate of more than 3%, compared to 0.5% in the 2010s), the scientists pointed out that “ we are still far from the emissions reductions we need.”

To reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2050, a reduction of 1.4 gigatons per year is now required. The warning comes as world leaders meet in Egypt as part of the COP27 summit to discuss the climate crisis.

“This year we see yet another increase in global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, when what we need is a rapid reduction. There are some positive signs, but leaders meeting at COP27 must take more action if there is to be a chance of limiting global warming to close to 1.5 degrees.

So far we don’t see the necessary action,” said Global Carbon Project chief scientist Professor Pierre Friedlingstein of the UK’s University of Exeter.

The new report estimates that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will reach an average of 417.2 ppm (parts per million) in 2022, a level more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels.

A second US scientific study, published in the climate change journal Nature Climate Change, also estimates that the rise in temperature will likely eventually exceed 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

The question now is how much it will exceed this limit that was agreed at the international summit in Paris in 2015 and how quickly.

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the University of Maryland are calling on countries to adopt more ambitious measures and get rid of carbon faster, as exceeding the 1, 5 points “seems inevitable now”.

“Let’s face reality. We are going to break the 1.5 degree mark within the next two decades. That means we’ll get to 1.6 or 1.7 degrees or more, so then we’ll have to bring them down to 1.5 degrees. How quickly we can achieve this will be the key,” said lead researcher Haewon McJeon.

RES-EMP

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