Global society may finally be putting the brakes on the climate-warming pollution released by humanity's burning of fossil fuels.
According to the carbon monitoring plan, total global climate pollution emissions from February to May 2024 decreased slightly compared with the same period in 2023. A key milestone in climate pollution peak may be happening now.
And it all happened so fast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in early June that “carbon is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever before—rising sharply to levels far exceeding any in human history.”
“This past year, we experienced the hottest year on record, the hottest ocean temperatures on record, and a seemingly endless stream of heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires, and storms,” said NOAA Administrator John Lee. K. Spinrad said. “Now we are seeing the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increasing faster than ever before. We must recognize these as clear signs that carbon dioxide pollution is causing damage to the climate system and act quickly to reduce the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
If society is reaching peak emissions, why are the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increasing so rapidly? That's because the peak is two centuries away, with more and more fossil fuels being burned every year to fuel economic growth. Relatively rare exceptions tend to occur in years of economic downturn, such as a global recession or a pandemic. The global economy has grown over the years, and with it the consumption of energy fossil fuels and their associated climate pollution.
“Fossil fuel pollution continues to grow, just like garbage in landfills,” Scripps CO2 Program Director Ralph Keeling said in NOAA’s June 6 report.
Emissions have reached unsustainably high levels and must now fall sharply to reach net zero emissions by the second half of this century. The clean energy transition has helped tremendously; in most of the non-COVID-19 years of the past decade, including 2022 and 2023, global emissions grew by only about 1% even as economies continued to grow. Yet global climate pollution stubbornly continues to rise to record levels.
China and the United States must take the lead
As one of the world's largest countries with a rapidly growing economy and continued expansion of coal power, China will play a key role in reducing carbon emissions. The U.S. presidential election in November will also play a huge role. President Joe Biden is the only candidate from either major party with a plan to reduce emissions. An analysis by Carbon Brief estimates that a victory for Donald Trump could increase climate pollution in the United States by 4 billion tons – equivalent to the annual emissions of Europe and Japan combined.
Read: How Trump and Biden compare on climate change
According to the International Energy Agency, global energy-related carbon pollution fell slightly in 2023 in the rest of the world except China. Then global emissions will peak.
As a November 2023 report from the Climate Science and Policy Institute’s Climate Analytics states: “If current trends in clean technology growth continue and some progress is made in reducing non-CO2 emissions, 70% of emissions The likelihood starts to decline in 2024, which would make 2023 the peak emissions year.
Advances in Clean Technology
To continue reducing pollution, the world needs to accelerate the rapid deployment of key clean technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles, and reduce levels of methane and other climate pollutants.
Cleantech is booming so far in 2024. China's electricity demand is growing. May numbers look better. Currently, about one-tenth of the vehicles on China's roads are electric vehicles.
“China’s clean energy industry has achieved unparalleled growth,” CREA China policy analyst Belinda Schäpe wrote via email. “For the first time, low-carbon energy sources are expanding at a rate fast enough to outpace the average annual increase in China’s electricity demand. If this growth If this persists and energy demand stabilizes, fossil fuel consumption is likely to decline, following an unprecedented energy-intensive economic recovery.
According to Myllyvirta's analysis, two other key factors play a role in China's climate pollution trajectory. The country lifted strict “zero-COVID” restrictions in December 2022, and the associated pollution rebound in 2023 now appears to have stabilized. Real estate construction activity in China has been shrinking due to a glut of unsold homes and unfinished projects.
“Real estate investment contracted for the third consecutive year between January and May 2024, causing cement production to fall by 11% and steel production to rise only slightly by 2.9%,” Schäpe noted. “Reductions in these industries have been offset by an increase in manufacturing activity. Partially offset, particularly by industrial machinery, some of which are producing renewable technologies, however, the overall contraction in real estate has led to a significant reduction in emissions from the industrial sector, which is China's second largest contributor to carbon emissions after the power sector.
Whether China's climate pollution remains stable or rises again depends on whether the country's rapid growth in clean energy can continue. Myllyvirta said the solar and wind power targets set by the central government are relatively less ambitious than China's clean energy industry deployment targets in the coming years. But to meet its Paris climate commitments, China must continue to rapidly deploy clean energy. An analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance concluded that China “could reach peak emissions immediately under an economic-led transition” in which the most cost-effective technologies are deployed because clean energy is so cheap .
the rest of the world
Other countries also need to play their part. In Europe, as in the United States, emissions have been falling, largely due to the rapid deployment of clean electricity such as solar and wind, while heat pump installations are also starting to have an impact in the residential building sector. Europe has also been trying to eliminate its dependence on Russian supplies of fossil natural gas, commonly known as gas, since the war in Ukraine began.
The recent European Parliament elections did not send encouraging signals for the climate. European Greens lost seats while far-right parties gained seats. Still, centrist parties will retain majority control, so Europe's relatively ambitious climate agenda should remain largely unchanged. Clean energy deployment around the world is already making a huge difference in curbing climate pollution. The International Energy Agency estimates that if the deployment of five key clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, nuclear, heat pumps and electric vehicles, is not accelerated since 2019, global emissions will increase by 7.5%, rather than the actual increase of 2.5% over the past four years. Year.
Reaching the peak emissions milestone will be a critical first step in bending the curve downward to ultimately achieve net-zero emissions and stabilize the planet’s climate.
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