A new report from the Global Carbon Project suggests annual global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels could drop slightly in 2015, contrasting with the rapid growth in emissions before 2014.
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Researchers at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and the Global Carbon Project found that carbon emissions are set to decline by 0.6 per cent in 2015, a dramatic turnaround from a decade of growing 2.4 per cent per year. Authors of the study note that this would likely be the first time that decline in carbon emissions will occur during a period of strong global economic growth. No state in the USA has a lower per capita carbon emissions than large nations like China, India and Brazil.
Reduced coal use in China is largely responsible for the decline, say scientists in a December 7 column in the journal Nature Climate Change. “In 2014, more than half of new energy needs in China were met from non-fossil fuel sources, such as hydro, nuclear, wind and solar power”.
Although it is unlikely that we have reached global peak emissions, it is very likely that 2015 marks a new era of slower growth in fossil fuel emissions.
“Even if emissions were to peak soon, global emissions would still take years to decline substantively”, said the authors.
“Only a year ago people were assuming that economic growth and emissions growth were as inextricably coupled as Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin”, he said. Using an obviously incomplete dataset for 2015, they project a decrease of 0.6 percent (with error bars from a 1.6 percent decline to 0.5 percent growth), even as global GDP increased. Last year, the world pumped an estimated 35.9 billion metric tons (39.6 billion tons) into the air by burning coal, oil and gas, along with making cement.
He noted that more companies and investors are leading on climate action than at any time in history, and that they are doing so “because they understand the risks of climate change, and the opportunities inherent in addressing it”.
It was hoped the 195 countries attending the Paris climate change talks would finalise an agreement before the discussions wrapped up on Friday.
And then there’s the fact that we already have emitted two-thirds of the total carbon allocation to the atmosphere that would ensure at least a 66 percent chance of limiting global temperature increases to below 2 C – a reality that is undoubtedly weighing heavily on the world leaders in Paris for COP21.
The “surprising” findings were published as 195 nations entered the final phase of UN talks in Paris for an accord to roll back heat-trapping carbon emissions, blamed for risky climate change.
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“Present World system models presume that global plant growth will supply the great advantage of canceling a substantial piece of mankind’s Carbon dioxide emissions, so purchasing us much needed time to control emissions”, Smith explained in a press release.
