Tenfold increase in CO2 emissions cuts needed to stem climate emergency Date: March 3, 2021

 

• Climate researchers analysed multiple studies and recent monthly energy data
• They found worldwide CO2 emissions fell by about 7 percent below 2019 levels 
• Humanity is still short of meeting the climate targets of the 2015 Paris Agreement  
• Even continued lockdowns wouldn't be enough to prevent a climate emergency

Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions still need to decrease tenfold to avoid a climate emergency, scientists warn, despite a global fall in 2020 due to Covid-19.

An international team of experts has performed a 'global stocktake' of humanity's progress towards the Paris Agreement – which aims to keep the global average temperature rise to well below 3.6ºF (2°C), compared to pre-industrial levels.

They found global CO2 emissions fell by around 2.6 billion tonnes in 2020, a decrease of about 7 percent from 2019 levels. 

During this unprecedented, deadly global event, millions of people who could stay at home did just that. Cars sat in driveways. Air travel ground to a halt. Manufacturing plants slowed or stopped. Public buildings shut their doors. Even construction slowed down. Nearly every sector of the energy-using economy reacted to the shock in one way or another.

The result was one of the biggest single drops in modern history in the amount of carbon dioxide humans emit.

Over the first few months of 2020, global daily CO2 emissions averaged about 17 percent lower than in 2019. At the moments of the most restrictive and extensive lockdowns, emissions in some countries hovered nearly 30 percent below last year’s averages, says Glen Peters, one of the authors of the Nature Climate Change analysis and a climate scientist at Norway’s Center for International Climate Research.

While emissions decreased in 64 countries, they increased in 150 countries between 2016 and 2019 – and also increased worldwide overall. 

CO2 emissions decreased by 0.16 billion tonnes on average each year among the 64 countries where emissions decreased.  

This is a tenth of the 1 billion to 2 billion tonne cuts needed at the global level to meet the Paris Agreement climate goals. 

Globally, emissions grew by 0.21 billion tonnes of CO2 per year between 2016 and 2019, compared to 2011 and 2015.    

Results also revealed that in the group of high-income countries, emissions had declined by 0.8 percent per year on average since the Paris Agreement, with a further decrease of 9 per cent in 2020 due to Covid-19. 

THE PARIS AGREEMENT: A GLOBAL ACCORD TO LIMIT TEMPERATURE RISES THROUGH CARBON EMISSION REDUCTION TARGETS

The Paris Agreement, which was first signed in 2015, is an international agreement to control and limit climate change.

It hopes to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2°C (3.6ºF) 'and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F)'.

It seems the more ambitious goal of restricting global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) may be more important than ever, according to previous research which claims 25 percent of the world could see a significant increase in drier conditions.

In June 2017, President Trump announced his intention for the US, the second-largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world, to withdraw from the agreement.  

The Paris Agreement on Climate Change has four main goals with regards to reducing emissions:

1)  A long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels

2) To aim to limit the increase to 1.5°C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change

3) Government agreed on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognizing that this will take longer for developing countries

4) To undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with the best available science

Source: European Commission 

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