Rapid growth in carbon dioxide emissions breaks in 2015

Researchers from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and the Global Carbon Project said that global carbon emissions increased by 0.6 percent last year and could decline by as much as 0.6 percent this year to 35.7 gigatonnes.

A new study presented at the UN Climate Change Conference reveals how for the first time ever, there will be a trend in declining levels of carbon dioxide emissions around the world. India is seeing a rapid growth in emissions, unlike China, the US and the European Union, which are seeing emissions declines, he said.

“This year we expect total emissions to flatten or drop slightly, despite strong growth in gross domestic product worldwide”, he added.

“Whether a slower growth in global emissions will be sustained depends on the use of coal in China and elsewhere, and where new energy will come from”, she said.

Researchers believe the new figures were caused by a decrease in China’s fossil fuel emissions paired with increased use worldwide of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

“Current Earth system models assume that global plant growth will provide the tremendous benefit of offsetting a significant portion of humanity’s Carbon dioxide emissions, thus buying us much needed time to curb emissions”, said William Kolby Smith, a Luc Hoffman Institute postdoctoral fellow working with IonE’s Global Landscapes Initiative and the Natural Capital Project. “When emissions do peak, we have a long road ahead of us to decarbonize the global economy”.

In the past decade, Chinese carbon emissions rose on average by 6.7 per year-on-year. 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.

To help put this into perspective, we developed the interactive above to let you compare annual carbon emissions of USA states with other countries.

“Even if emissions were to peak soon, global emissions would still take years to decline substantively”, said the authors.

But Le Quere says it’s China, the world’s biggest source of CO2, that will drive the ups and downs in the emissions numbers for the world in the near future.

The reduced coal consumption in China has been found to be the major contributor to the projected reduction in carbon emissions.

Emissions of man-made greenhouse gases appear to have declined slightly in 2015, scientists said on Monday, reflecting what experts say is an encouraging, though likely temporary, pause in the steady rise in pollutants blamed for climate change. “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….”

Global greenhouse gas emissions have risen more than 40% since 1990, largely due to increased use of fossil fuel by emerging economies like China, India, and others.

If India’s development follows the same path as China’s, India’s emissions could eventually equal those of China.