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Global Carbon Emissions Jump To All-Time High in 2018 (theguardian.com)

Global carbon emissions will jump to a record high in 2018, according to a report, dashing hopes a plateau of recent years would be maintained. It means emissions are heading in the opposite direction to the deep cuts urgently needed, say scientists, to fight climate change. From a report: The rise is due to the growing number of cars on the roads and a renaissance of coal use and means the world remains on the track to catastrophic global warming. However, the report's authors said the emissions trend can still be turned around by 2020, if cuts are made in transport, industry and farming emissions. The research by the Global Carbon Project was launched at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, where almost 200 nations are working to turn the vision of tackling climate change agreed in Paris in 2015 into action. The report estimates CO2 emissions will rise by 2.7% in 2018, sharply up on the plateau from 2014-16 and 1.6% rise in 2017.

Almost all countries are contributing to the rise, with emissions in China up 4.7%, in the US by 2.5% and in India by 6.3% in 2018. The EU's emissions are near flat, but this follows a decade of strong falls. "The global rise in carbon emissions is worrying, because to deal with climate change they have to turn around and go to zero eventually," said Prof Corinne Le Quere, at the University of East Anglia,who led the research published in the journal Nature. "We are not seeing action in the way we really need to. This needs to change quickly."

4 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. Quick summary by bradley13 · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you look at their data (download the PDF - it has the overview graphs), it's what you expect: CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in the West are declining. China, following massive rises, has plateaued at a high level - on a per capita basis, the same as the EU (shocking, given the number of Chinese living essentially pre-industrial lives).

    On a per capita basis, the US is still far higher than anyone else. However, this has been declining at an impressive pace, and there is no obvious basis for the claim that US consumption will increase in 2018. In fact, that would be a huge trend reversal, and (imho) is likely a politically motivated claim.

    Meanwhile, emissions from India and other Asian countries are increasing rapidly. In fact, they are driving *all* of the global increase, plus compensating for declining emissions everywhere else.

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  2. Re: WTF USA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    A Chinese apologist. China is adding more than 250 GW of new coal plants in China, and another 250 GW in other nations before 2021. And yet, you point to America as being horrible. America has been declining for the last 10 years. A 2.5 on 14% is much smaller than a 4.7 rise on 33%.

  3. Re:Blaming others. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Per capita, the US generates more than twice as much carbon as other developed nations. Reducing your carbon emissions should be easy, because you are already ridiculously dirty and inefficient as a nation.

  4. Re: Global Stupidity by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

    China hit peak coal years ago and has been in decline ever since:

    http://ieefa.org/ieefa-update-...
    https://www.brookings.edu/2018...

    The "new" capacity is replacing old plants with more efficient, cleaner ones. Same thing happened in Germany.

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