In this case, the 2015 projection ranges from a global decline in emissions of up to 1.5 per cent or at the other end of the spectrum, a small rise of 0.5 per cent.
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Researchers said Monday they believe global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels declined in 2015.
This surprising result contrasts with the rapid growth in emissions before 2014, underlining the need for action to stabilize and permanently lower global Carbon dioxide emissions, the researchers conclude. They said that in the first nine months of 2015, China’s “growth of new generating capacity based on water, wind and sun greatly exceeds the growth of new capacity based on burning fossil fuels”. Thanks mainly to changes in China, the worldwide growth in emissions flattened in 2014 and is set to drop slightly this year, said the study.
The rate at which greenhouse gases are getting pumped into the world’s atmosphere seems to be slowing down, according to new figures presented this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.
Carbon-curbing strategies focus on improving energy efficiency from traditional fossil fuels and on shifting to low- or zero-carbon sources such as wind, solar, hydro, geothermal or nuclear.
Dr. Pep Canadell from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) co-authored the report as executive-director of the GCP, and said 2015 could be the turning point from consistent growth in carbon emissions to consistent reductions. “There is a long way to near zero emissions”.
The study was conducted by the Global Carbon Project and headed by scientists at Stanford University.
Other co-authors of the report are Robbie Andrew, Jan Ivar Korsbakken and Glen Peters, Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (Norway); and Nebojsa Nakicenovic, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria).
With funding from Alberta’s Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC), Ingenuity Lab is developing a facility to demonstrate the economic viability of transforming Carbon dioxide emissions into high value products.
More information: Robert B. Jackson et al. Therefore, a slowdown in China’s emissions has an immediate global impact.
Prof Le Quere said: “It looks like the trajectory of global emissions might have changed temporarily”. That’s because their economies will develop faster using coal power than with alternative energy sources now available. “I certainly think they will”, Le Quere says, because China’s economy is bound to revive. We are still emitting massive amounts of Carbon dioxide annually – around 36bn tonnes from fossil fuels and industry alone.
As a world leader in carbon transformation, Ingenuity Lab may have the answer to one of COP21’s hardest questions; how to reduce carbon emissions in a way that’s financially sustainable. The year is expected to end as the hottest on record, and that’s in a century that has already had 14 record-hot years. The increase in Indian emissions in 2014 was the same as the decrease in European Union emissions. The researchers called it a “substantial improvement” over the previous decade and in line with meeting the emissions-reduction pledge China submitted in the lead-up to Paris.
A key contributor to projected future emissions is India, the study showed.
The increase in emissions in India of 205 MtCO2 was the same size as the decline in emissions in the European Union of 210 MtCO2 in 2014.
Yet the current emissions path is not consistent with stabilising the climate at a level below 2℃ global warming.
India’s challenge is the need to provide 1.3 billion people with greater access to energy.
Emissions have been rising by 2-3% a year since 2000.
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Pollution levels meanwhile continue to rise in India, which is seeking to rapidly expand its electrical grid to service its 1.3 billion citizens. Emissions from the consumption of goods and services produced elsewhere has started to decrease, after rising during the period 1990-2007.
