Carbon emissions hit high as climate action stagnates

Government climate action has not reduced future global heating predictions for the last three years, according to Climate Action Tracker (CAT), a global team of scientists tracing government climate policies.

With no new national climate targets or net zero emissions pledged in 2024, current policies continue to set the world on a path toward 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, said CAT in its annual global update.

The three year standstill in temperature projections reinforces a "critical disconnect between the reality of climate change and the urgency that governments are giving to the policies to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions," said CAT.

While investments in renewables and electric vehicles are now double those for fossil fuels, record fossil fuel subsidies — which quadrupled for fossil fuel projects between 2021 and 2022 — have balanced out the clean energy gains, said the update. 

CAT has also calculated the projected impact of US President-elect Donald Trump's Project 2025 planned rollback of climate policies. If limited to the US, the pro-fossil fuel agenda could increase warming by around 0.04 degrees C.

While minimal, this impact would worsen if other countries slow action because the US leaves Paris Agreement, or less climate finance is available.

The potential for Trump, who has referred to climate change as a "hoax" and "scam," to "throw a wrecking ball into climate action" would not wholly stop "the clean energy momentum" created by the current Democratic administration," said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, a climate think tank.

Fossil fuel emissions still to peak

Meanwhile, fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions created by burning oil, gas and coal are predicted to reach a new high in 2024, with little sign that a much-needed peak in planet-heating pollution is near. 

According to the latest annual global carbon budget assessment by the UK-based Global Carbon Project, a team of scientists tracking emissions of the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, both fossil fuel use and land-use change such as deforestation are up on 2023 levels.

Global carbon emissions from burning and using fossil fuels alone are projected to rise 0.8% in 2024, reaching 37.4 billion tons.

This comes amid the COP29 UN climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, which are negotiating ways to meet the targets set in Paris in 2015 and rapidly reduce emissions to net zero to limit temperature rise.

"Time is running out to meet the Paris Agreement goals — and world leaders meeting at COP29 must bring about rapid and deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions to give us a chance of staying well below 2 degrees Celsius [3.6 degrees Fahrenheit] warming above pre-industrial levels," said Pierre Friedlingstein of Exeter's Global Systems Institute, which led the study.

Emissions rising again after decade of stagnation 

While fossil CO2 emissions have risen over the last 10 years, land-use change CO2 emissions have declined on average, keeping overall emissions approximately level over the period.

But this year, carbon emissions from both fossil fuels and land-use change are set to rise. This is partly due to drought, and emissions both from deforestation and forest fires during the predominant El Nino weather pattern of 2023-2024.

With over 40 billion tons of CO2 currently being released annually, atmospheric carbon levels continue to rise and drive dangerous global heating.

2024 is already predicted to be the hottest year on record. It is poised to surpass the record-breaking heat of 2023, with several consecutive months recording temperatures above 1.5 degrees Celsius.

At the current rate of emissions, the 120 scientists contributing to the Global Carbon Budget report estimate a 50% chance temperature rise will exceed 1.5°C consistently in about six years.

In 2024, extreme weather events linked to global heating, including deadly heat waves, torrential flooding, tropical cyclones, wildfires and severe drought, have caused devastating human and economic losses.

"The impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly dramatic, yet we still see no sign that burning of fossil fuels has peaked," said Friedlingstein.

Despite emissions rise, climate action is succeeding

Corinne Le Quere, a Royal Society research professor at Exeter University's School of Environmental Sciences, said the latest data also shows evidence of effective and "widespread climate action." 

"The growing penetration of renewables and electric cars displacing fossil fuels and decreasing deforestation emissions in the past decades" were confirmed for the first time, she said. 

"There are many signs of positive progress at the country level, and a feeling that a peak in global fossil CO2 emissions is imminent, but the global peak remains elusive," said Glen Peters, of the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Oslo. 

The researchers pointed to 22 countries, including many European nations, the US and the UK, where fossil fuel emissions have fallen during the past decade even as their economies have grown.  

"Progress in all countries needs to accelerate fast enough to put global emissions on a downward trajectory towards net zero," said Peters.

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

This article was originally published on November 13, 2024 and was updated to include findings released by Climate Action Tracker on November 14.