So far, the worldwide climate meeting in Paris has primarily been about words, as diplomats wrestle with the precise language of a treaty.
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“Our data provides a small glimmer of hope that the steady growth of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be ending”, said Stanford researcher Robert B. Jackson, the project’s leader. Still, even that amount is significant. “What it shows is that we are indeed now turning the corner in transition from a fossil fuel to renewable-driven global economy”.
The report by the Global Carbon Project (GCP) has found that emissions of carbon dioxide in 2015 will break the rapid emissions growth of the past decade, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CISRO), Australia, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The break has to do with China’s economic instability”, study co-author Corinne Le Quéré, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia in Norwich told Nature News.
“China’s intensity target does lead to increased emissions… if it does not peak until 2030”, Levin said.
A previous December 5 draft of the agreement was reported to have included the wording “parties pursue the limitation or reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from worldwide aviation and marine bunker fuels”. The surprising findings were published as 195 nations entered the final phase of U.N. talks for an accord to roll back carbon emissions, blamed for unsafe climate change. Therefore, a slowdown in China’s emissions has an immediate global impact. Analysts say the carbon trading market in China may be connected to that in Europe to create a global market.
For some climate experts, the report is not only encouraging, but it also serves to dispel the widespread notion, often used to justify inaction, that emission reductions necessitate economic decline. The U.S. has argued that GHG emissions cuts should not be legally binding; perhaps a pragmatic position due to the fact that legally binding emissions cuts could require the U.S. submit the agreement for approval by the U.S. Senate, which would likely reject any such proposal.
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. But yesterday, a team of scientists unveiled something new that took a lot of people here by surprise. One skeptical scientist offered a $10,000 bet that world emissions will keep rising.
ROB JACKSON: I was surprised by the result.
The bank said in a note that weather-related losses have hit $4 trillion over the past 30 years and have averaged $200 billion per annum in the last decade.
JOYCE: Usually when economies are doing well, they’re using more energy and putting out more CO2.
The Global Carbon Project, part of the International Council for Science and Future Earth, addresses climate change by providing regular analyses of the global carbon cycle. But with its cities blighted by severe air pollution, there has been a fall in coal consumption in at least the first eight months of 2015, and use of renewables has gone up.
JOYCE: That’s lowered China’s Carbon dioxide emissions a startling 4 percent this year. More than 44 million tons of carbon have been traded, with a total worth of 1.3 billion yuan. It’s not much, but it reverses a relentless increase over the past few years.
On the occasion of Paris Climate Change Conference, Dr. Li Tianlun, General Coordinator of Energy Technology of French ENGIE Group, accepted an interview from Economic Daily.
Regardless of what happens, in the next 48 hours or so we will see important history made.
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It includes more than 100 countries, including the European Union, some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries, the US, Norway, Mexico and Colombia.
