Why could “loss and damage” become a polarizing issue?
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Fellow Victoria University researcher Martin Manning said such a dropping carbon trend would be a win for the world’s environment – thanks to China in particular.
A data analysis led by the Tyndall Centre at the U.K.’s University of East Anglia found that emissions grew only 0.6 per cent in 2014 and are projected to fall 0.6 per cent this year. Their study shows a almost 4 percent drop in emissions for the first eight months of the year when compared to the same time last year.
While CO2 emissions have slowed during times of economic recession, this would be the first decline during a period of strong global economic growth, Jackson said. “We have many scientific tools in our toolbox, and bringing them together is a powerful approach to asking questions and to solving problems”.
This article was written by Pep Canadell from CSIRO, and was originally published by The Conversation.
Other organizations have said that world carbon emissions growth stalled a year ago, after decades of gains.
But that’s not to say we can all give ourselves a big pat on the back.
Jackson and an international team used data from the Global Carbon Project, which tracks worldwide CO2 emissions, to come up with their result.
Peters added that in coming years, India “could actually dominate the global growth in the way that China has done in the past”. “This is because energy needs for growing economies still rely primarily on coal, and emissions decreases in some industrial countries are still modest at best”.
China burns an enormous amount of coal – creating an enormous amount of CO2.
“This is not a random event”.
Plants use the energy in sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water to sugar, which they use for food to nourish themselves, and oxygen, which they release into the atmosphere.
Since 2000, global emissions have grown annually by 2-3%.
Any deal done in Paris is nearly certain to fall short of a United Nations goal of limiting global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), which many scientists see as the threshold for avoiding risky climate change.
Steady declines are being seen around the world – including Australia – but not fast enough.
“They’re trying to push the economy to be driven more by consumption-driven growth, and less by heavy industry and construction”, the researcher said.
Achieving climate stabilisation will require reducing emissions to near zero, researchers said.
World leaders… French President Francois Hollande with Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the COP 21 summit last week.
Since decades, the burning of fossil fuels by humans is the largest source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission.
Emissions have been steadily declining in European Union states, also largely because of a shift to renewable energy, as well as in the United States, where carbon pollution has fallen by an average 1.4 percent annually over recent years.
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But officials said the decline is unlikely to stick even as the world continues its transition to cleaner energy.
