A bucket wheel excavator mines coal at the Garzweiler opencast coal mine, with windmills in the background, in Luetzerath, Germany. In the background is the Niederaussem coal-fired power plant. (AP)
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt – The burning of coal, oil and nature Air 1% more carbon dioxide traps heat in the air this year than last year, bad news for the fight against climate change but with a strange twist, according to scientists tracking emissions.
A study by scientists at Global Carbon Project released early Friday at the international climate talks in Egypt. Both have opposite long-term trends. U.S. emissions have been steadily falling while China’s emissions have been increasing — so far this year.
In either case, it was a response to the pandemic and perhaps a bit of an energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, study lead author Pierre Friedlingstein at the University of Exeter told The Associated Press. Those two factors make this year’s data chaotic and difficult to draw trends, he said. China’s lockdown in 2022 to try to control the newly renewed COVID-19 was a major factor in that country’s decline, he said.
Friedlingstein said that much of the spike has been in transportation — auto and air — with Americans’ travel restrictions during the pandemic easing.
While global carbon pollution is still increasing, it is not increasing at the same rate as 10 or 15 years ago. However, scientists generally say this is bad news because it is pushing the Earth closer to impact and then past the globally accepted threshold of warming. 1.5 degrees Degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.
“That means we should be ready to go beyond the target and enter a world we’ve never seen before,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who was not part of the research team. via.
Friedlingstein’s team – along with other scientific reports – suggest that Earth could only put 380 billion tons of carbon dioxide (419 billion US tons) into the atmosphere before Earth reaches the 1.5-degree mark. That’s about 9 to 10 years’ worth of emissions, meaning the globe will probably hit that level around 2031 or 2032.
Friedlingstein said: “The time for 1.5 is running out.
“This is bad news,” said Brown University climate scientist Kim Cobb, who was not part of the research team. “It is difficult to see any silvery signs in increasing emissions, as we have to cut emissions in half by 2030 to keep global warming to the absolute minimum. “
By 2022, the world is on track to put 36.6 billion tons (40.3 billion tons) of carbon dioxide into the air from energy use and cement, research calculate. That’s the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza in the amount of carbon dioxide that spews out every 75 minutes.
Apart from the United States which has seen its emissions increase, India has increased by 6% in 2022, while Europe has decreased by 0.8%. The rest of the world had an average increase in carbon pollution of 1.7%.
The report said pollution from coal increased by 1% year-on-year, for oil by 2% and by natural gas by 0.2%. Friedlingstein says about 40% of carbon dioxide comes from burning coal, 33% from oil and 22% from natural gas.
The team calculated emissions levels through the early fall using data provided by top carbon emitters, including the US, China, India and Europe, and then came up with forecast for the rest of the year.
Despite the limitations to the projections, Oppenheimer said: “This is group A in terms of CO2 emissions and the carbon cycle. They know what they’re doing.”
Carbon emissions from fossil fuels decrease by 5.3% in 2020 but back up 5.6% Friedlingstein said last year, with China’s push, and now have completely erased the decline of the pandemic and is on a slow rise.
The team also looked at overall emissions, including the effect of land use. He said: “When land use is put into practice, emissions are flat, not increasing slightly.
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