CO2 emission from burning fossil fuel could drop in 2015

This compares with earlier fears that China’s emissions peak may not have occurred until 2030.

The numbers, however, are intriguing.

CO2 emissions from the European Union have also declined by 2.4 per year in the past decade, and the United States by 1.4 percent, said the authors. Historically, as after the 2008 financial crash, emissions have only slumped when there is an economic slowdown. Instead, the pause is happening at a time when the global economy grew at least 3.4 per cent between 2012 and 2014 and is projected, according to the International Monetary Fund, to grow 3.1 per cent in 2015. The trends in emissions are favourable, and countries have the opportunity to negotiate significantly higher levels of ambition to decouple economic growth from emissions.

The “what” is easier to answer.

However, as the Chinese economy recovers from a period of slow growth and India pursues its plan to double burning of coal in power plants, emissions growth is likely to resume over the next few years, underscoring a key difference between peak emissions and zero emissions.

“All the studies show that we can have continued economic prosperity and declining and ultimate zero emissions”, Mr Connor said. “It’s happening faster than we expected”.

“They’re responsible for seven per cent of Carbon dioxide emissions but this level is the same as where China was in 1990”, he said.

Carbon emissions need to fall. “We just don’t know where India is going to go over the next 20 years”.

 China, India and many developing nations are expected to increase their carbon emissions in the coming years. Additionally, China invested $80 billion into renewable sources of energy in 2014.

“That’s obviously good news, but at this point in a negotiation like this, people are pretty focused on the business at hand”.

Nevertheless, the researchers were cautious about the findings, saying even if emissions peak in the next couple decades, “we’ll still be emitting massive amounts of Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels”. Current CO2 reduction pledges from countries, however, aren’t even close to keeping global warming below 2 degrees based on some climate models – which have been consistently wrong about global warming.

“Our results are a welcome change from the trajectory of the last 15 years or so”, said Robert Jackson, an environmental scientist at Stanford and lead author on the study.

“It is hard to overstate the significance of this development”, said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.

But that’s not to say we can all give ourselves a big pat on the back. Still, he says, “we’ll need to do much more”.

Diego Pavia, chief executive of the EIT’s INNO Energy-KIC said governments could use public spending to push industry into more climate innovation.

The report covering the period when the industrial world’s economies are growing came from the Global Carbon Project, an worldwide organization of experts that has monitored the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide since 2001.

Study in journal Nature Climate Change.