CO2 emissions may hit record level this year
CO2) emissions from fossil fuels are projected to increase by 1.1% to reach record levels of 36.8 billion tonnes this year from 2022 with emissions in India being estimated to increase by 8.2% and in China by 4% whereas it may decline by 7.4% in the EU and 3% in the USA during the same period, said a Global Carbon Budget report.
The analysis shows that the increase in fossil emissions is driven mainly by China and only to a smaller degree by India which still has clear development needs to overcome.
Released on the sideline of the UN climate conference (COP28) on Tuesday, the report underlined that there is a 50% chance that global warming will exceed 1.5 degree celsius (Paris Agreement warming limit threshold) «consistently» in about seven years at the current emissions level.
«It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5 degree C target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree to rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2 degree C target alive,» said Pierre Friedlingstein of Exeter's Global Systems Institute, who led the study.
