New Report Predicts Possible Dip in Global CO2 Emissions

In a separate paper published in Nature Climate Change, we look in more detail at the possibility of reaching global peak emissions.

“While carbon dioxide emissions have slowed during times of economic recession, this would be the first decline during a period of strong global economic growth”, lead author Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University, said in a statement. But global GDP has grown stably since 2012 and is expected to grow even more robustly in 2015.

It also comes at a time of global economic expansion, compared with the previous emissions drop that occurred during the global financial crisis.

“These figures are certainly not typical of the growth trajectory seen since 2000, where the annual growth in emissions was between 2 and 3 percent”, UEA researcher Corinne Le Quéré, one of the authors of the study in the journal Nature Climate Change, told news agency Reuters.

Analysts who were not involved in the research hailed its significance.

Dr. Canadell, however, warned that the slight drop in the emissions may not mean the world has changed its attitude and perspective towards climate change. “This keeps 2ºC in play”.

Greenhouse gases linger in the atmosphere for decades or even centuries, depending on their type.

Researchers said that they expect the stall to be temporary and for emissions to increase again as emerging economies such as India continue to develop and move forward with plans to double the burning of coal in power plants, according to the BBC.

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.

But even at this level, humanity would be on a collision course with mass migration and increased poverty caused by rising seas, drought and violent storms.

Australia is the 14 largest carbon emissions contributor globally and while its per capita emissions remain high; there has been a significant declining trend over the past 6 years.

While it is unclear whether the stagnation of Carbon dioxide emissions over the past couple of years heralds the coming of peak emissions, Jackson believes that the study offers promise.

The need is great because India will soon be the world’s biggest source of Carbon dioxide instead of China, as India embraces coal to bring electricity to hundreds of millions of its citizens.

These included China, which emitted 9.7 billion tonnes, followed by the US (5.6 billion), the European Union (3.4 billion) and India (2.6 billion).

Most forecasts show that Australia’s actual total emission will rise by 2020. However, in this new study, this slowdown of emissions can be linked to a recent decrease of coal usage in China which is a nation responsible for 27 percent of global carbon emissions.

On the positive side, China has dramatically increased its renewable energy and is capping its coal burning, much of it driven by the effort to clean up traditional air pollution that is choking cities like Beijing, said study co-author Dabo Guan of the University of East Anglia.