Every year at the World Climate Summit, the Global Carbon Budget is published – a balance sheet of global CO2 emissions. For this year, the report shows a mixed trend: CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are rising more slowly than before and total global emissions have actually plateaued on a ten-year average. But that is far from enough to achieve the climate protection goals: the CO2 budget for the 1.5 degree target will be used up in six years.
It is actually clear what is necessary: In order to slow down climate change and contain the increasingly severe and frequent weather extremes, humanity must drastically reduce its CO2 emissions and even bring them down to net zero in the long term. But climate protection is making slow progress. International efforts, for example at world climate conferences such as the current COP29, have so far brought little progress.
Fossil CO2 emissions continue to rise, but more slowly
Every year, researchers in the “Global Carbon Budget” project determine what the global CO2 emissions trends are and how much of humanity’s CO2 budget is left and publish their report in time for the World Climate Summit. Today they published the balance sheet for 2024 – with mixed results. The bad news: CO2 emissions from fossil fuels will continue to rise this year – to 37.4 billion tons of CO2. This represents an increase of 0.8 percent compared to 2023. Global land use changes due to deforestation, agriculture and other factors contribute an additional 4.2 billion tons to CO2 emissions. Their value therefore remains at about the same level as in previous years.
Combined, humanity’s CO2 emissions will reach 41.6 billion tons in 2024 – more than ever before. The CO2 content of the atmosphere will reach a new record level of 422.5 parts per million (ppm) this year – 2.8 ppm more than in 2023 and 52 percent more than in the pre-industrial era. “Although the effects of climate change are becoming more and more dramatic, we still see no sign that the peak of CO2 emissions has been passed,” says study leader Pierre Friedlingstein from the University of Exeter. If global CO2 emissions remain at the current level, the emissions budget of around 235 billion tonnes of CO2 still available to achieve the 1.5 degree target will be used up in around six years. There are still 1,110 billion tons of CO2 remaining for the two-degree target – an amount that would be achieved in 27 years if emissions remained the same.
Positive trends in land use and some countries
The good news: Compared to 2023, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have at least slowed down. Large emitters such as the USA and the EU have reduced their CO2 emissions – the USA by 0.6 percent and the EU by 3.8 percent compared to the previous year. China, which accounts for 32 percent of global CO2 emissions, is emitting 0.2 percent more than in 2023, at least slowing down its CO2 emissions. A total of 22 countries have also managed to reduce their emissions despite economic growth – four more than in the previous year. “These trends can largely be explained by the ongoing decarbonization of energy systems, for example the switch from coal to natural gas and from fossil fuels to renewable energy,” the researchers report. The slightly slower economic growth in the last decade also contributed to this.
Looking at the last decade, emissions from land use change have also fallen by 20 percent compared to previous decades, the report shows. As a result, total global emissions have plateaued over the past decade. “The increase in fossil CO2 emissions is offset by falling emissions from land use changes,” report Friedlingstein and his colleagues. “This shows progress in the fight against climate change, but is not enough to put global emissions on the necessary downward path.” In the rest of the world and also in populous India, CO2 emissions have continued to rise – albeit more slowly than before. The increase in non-OECD countries has fallen from 4.9 percent in the last decade to 1.8 percent in the decade since 2014.
“In order to put global emissions on the necessary downward path, climate protection efforts in all countries must be accelerated,” says Friedlingstein. “Until the world reaches net-zero global emissions, temperatures will continue to rise, with increasingly serious consequences.”
Source: Global Carbon Budget 2024; Specialist article: Earth System Science Data, doi: 10.5194/essd-2024-519