Another bump upward in annual carbon emissions as new heat records set

If the world keeps burning fossil fuels at today’s level, it has six years before passing 1.5C above pre-industrial levels — the limit agreed to at 2015 climate talks

This year the world is on track to put 41.2 billion tons of the main heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere.

Even as Earth sets new heat records, humanity this year is pumping 330 million tons more carbon dioxide into the air by burning fossil fuels than it did last year.

This year the world is on track to put 41.2 billion tons of the main heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere.

It’s a 0.8% increase from 2023, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who track emissions. Several UN reports say the globe must cut emissions by 42% by 2030 to possibly limit warming to an internationally agreed-upon threshold.

This year’s pollution increase isn’t quite as large as last year’s 1.4% jump, scientists said while presenting the data at the UN climate talks in Azerbaijan.

If the world continues burning fossil fuels at today’s level, it has six years before passing 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the limit agreed to at the 2015 climate talks in Paris, said study co-author Stephen Sitch. The Earth is already at 1.3C, according to the UN.

“We clearly are not doing enough on a global scale to reduce emissions. It’s as simple as that,” said study co-author Mike O’Sullivan, a University of Exeter climate scientist. “We need to massively increase ambition and actually just think outside the box of how we can change things, not be so tied to fossil fuel interests.’’

Scientists used reported emissions from rich countries and oil industry data, O’Sullivan said. The 2024 figure includes projections for the last couple of months or so. The Global Carbon Project team released figures for the four biggest carbon emitters — China, the US, India and Europe. It also produced more detailed and final figures for about 200 countries for 2023.

Wildfires across Europe have become commonplace in recent years as the world heats up to unsustainable levels. Picture: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The continued rise in carbon emissions is mostly from the developing world and China. Many analysts had been hoping that China — by far the world’s biggest annual carbon polluting nation with 32% of the emissions — would have peaked its carbon dioxide emissions by now. 

Instead, China’s emissions rose 0.2% from 2023, with coal pollution up 0.3%, Global Carbon Project calculated. But it could drop to zero in the next two months and is “basically flat,” O’Sullivan said.

That’s nothing close to the increase in India, which at 8% of the globe’s carbon pollution is the third-largest carbon emitter. India’s carbon pollution jumped 4.6% in 2024, the scientists said.

Carbon emissions dropped in both the US and EU. They fell 0.6% in the US mostly from reduced coal, oil and cement use. The US was responsible for 13% of the globe’s carbon dioxide in 2024. Historically, it’s responsible for 21% of the world’s emissions since 1950, a figure that matters since the gas persists in the atmosphere for centuries.

Some 22 nations have shown steady decreases in emissions, O’Sullivan said, singling out the US as one of those. The biggest emission drops from 2014 to 2023 were in the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, and Ukraine.

Europe, which accounts for 7% of the world’s carbon pollution, saw its carbon dioxide output drop 3.8% from last year — driven by a big cut in coal emissions.

Global carbon emissions are well more than double what they were 50 years ago and 50% more than they were in 1999. Emissions have gone up about 6% in the past decade.

“This is a needed reminder of the urgency with which we need to address the cause of the climate crisis,” said PowerShift Africa founder Mohamed Adow, who wasn’t part of the study.

Activists demonstrate for climate justice and a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. Picture: AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool

“The problem is the fossil fuel industry is kicking and screaming for us to slow down and to keep them in business for longer. That’s why they poured money into Donald Trump’s election campaign.”

Carbon dioxide from humanity’s burning of coal, oil and natural gas amounts to nearly 1.2m kgs of the heat-trapping gas every second.

Total carbon emissions — which include fossil fuel pollution and land use changes such as deforestation — are basically flat because land emissions are declining, the scientists said. That’s an important and encouraging milestone amid bad news, said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann.

The stark figures come as world leaders converged at the UN’s annual climate conference Cop29 with plenty of big names and powerful countries noticeably absent.

Past talks often had the star power of a soccer World Cup. But the meeting in Azerbaijan won’t have the top leaders of the 13 largest carbon dioxide-polluting countries — a group responsible for more than 70% of the heat-trapping gases emitted last year.

“The people who are responsible for this are absent,” Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko said during his speech at the summit. “There’s nothing to be proud about.”

The world’s biggest polluters and strongest economies — China and the US — aren’t sending their No 1s. Neither are India and Indonesia. That’s the world’s four most populous nations, with more than 42% of all the world’s people.

Lack of urgency

“It’s symptomatic of the lack of political will to act. There’s no sense of urgency,” said climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics. He said this explains “the absolute mess we’re finding ourselves in”.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres told world leaders who did show up that the world is seeing “a master class in climate destruction” in a year virtually certain to be hottest on record.

However, Guterres held out hope, saying in a veiled reference to Donald Trump’s re-election in the US that the “clean energy revolution is here. No group, no business, no government can stop it”. 

Delegates the Presidency roundtable on day two of the Cop29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. Picture: Carl Court/PA

UN officials said when Trump was first elected in 2016, the world had 180 gigawatts of clean energy and 700,000 electric vehicles. Now it’s 600 gigawatts of clean energy and 14 million electric vehicles.

UN officials downplayed the lack of head of state star power, saying that every country is represented and active in the climate talks.

One logistical issue is that next week, the leaders of the most powerful countries have to be half a world away in Brazil for the G20 meetings. The recent election in the UN, Germany’s government collapse, natural disasters and personal illnesses also have kept some leaders away.

There is a strong showing from the leaders of some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries. Several small island nations presidents and over a dozen leaders from countries across Africa are speaking at the two-day World Leaders’ Summit portion of the conference.

“Our forebears map the tides with sticks, coconut fronds and shells. It is in our blood to know when a tide is turning. And on climate, the tide is turning today,” said Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine.

“Time will judge those that fail to make the transition.”

Associated Press