Despite drastic warnings about the climate crisis, global carbon dioxide emissions remain at a record level. There were "no signs of a decline," said a group of scientists on Thursday, which wrote the research report "Global Carbon Budget" (GCB). The total emissions - from land use and combustion of fossil fuels - are likely to amount to 40.6 billion tons this year. This is little lower than the highest value from 2019: 40.9 billion tons.
The GCB report was published by a team led by Pierre Friedlingstein from the University of Exeter in the journal "Earth System Science Data". Man-made emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are considered the main cause of global warming. In addition, other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide also play a role.
If the CO2 emissions will continue to be so high in the coming years, the amount of carbon dioxide, which can still be expelled for a 50 percent chance to comply with the 1.5 degree goal, will be consumed in nine years . The goal provides for global warming to be limited to 1.5 degrees until 2100 compared to pre -industrial times.
"It is quite obvious that this is a missed opportunity for us."
"We see some positive developments, but by no means the profound measures that should now be initiated to keep global warming to well below two degrees," Julia Pongratz from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, co-author of the report , quoted in a university message. One of the positive developments is that 24 states-including Germany-have reduced their CO2 emissions in recent years despite economic growth.
Nevertheless, according to the report, the global CO2 emissions due to the use of fossil fuels this year is expected to be 36.6 billion tons. That is one percent more than 2021 and just as much higher than in 2019, i.e. before Coronavirus pandemic. According to the researchers, the increase is mainly due to the higher oil consumption due to the increased air traffic. The emission values for 2022 were extrapolated from data up to and including October to the entire year. Overall, the report is based on data of global measurement networks, satellite data, statistical surveys and model calculations.
The fact that the total value of man-made CO2 emissions in 2022 will be slightly lower than in 2019 is related to the lower emissions of carbon dioxide from land use. About half of the increase in emissions due to deforestation can now be offset by reforestation elsewhere. That is why the CO2 emissions due to land use in 2022 are estimated at 3.9 billion tons, compared to 4.6 billion tons in 2019.
After global CO2 emissions decreased to 38.5 billion tons in the first Pandemie year 2020, the values are back at the level before pandemic. A hoped -for crisis coping with the help of a more sustainable economic system - called "Green Recovery" - did not exist. "It is very clear that we missed a chance here," said Judith Hauck from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, a co-author of the report, at an online press conference.
China saw a reduction in CO2 emissions.
In comparison to 2021, however, there are different developments in 2022: in the USA, CO2 emissions increase by 1.5 percent, in India by six percent, in the rest of the world-without China and EU-by 1.7 percent. In contrast, CO2 emissions in China decrease by about 0.9 percent, mainly because of the restrictive measures to combat pandemic and the construction crisis. In the EU, the values for CO2 decrease by 0.8 percent, especially because of the lower consumption of natural gas as a result of the energy crisis and war against Ukraine. While emissions from natural gas fell by ten percent in the EU, emissions from coal increased by 6.7 percent and from oil by 0.9 percent.
If global man-made CO2 emissions are to fall to zero by 2050, they would have to be reduced by an average of 1.4 billion tons per year. According to Jan Christoph Minx of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change gGmbH (MCC) in Berlin, the fight against climate change is no longer about one or the other measure: "We have to do everything!", he said at a press conference. It depends on every tenth of a degree that the Earth does not warm up, Pongratz added.
