CO2 pollution from fossil fuels to hit all-time high this year
The Global Carbon Budget report, released on November 11, 2022 during the United Nations COP27 climate summit, laid bare the gap between the promises governments, companies and investors have made to cut planet-warming emissions in future years, and their actions. Emissions from oil, fuelled by the rebound in aviation after the COVID-19 pandemic, will probably rise more than two percent compared with last year, while emissions from coal – thought by some to have peaked in 2014 – will hit a new record. Global CO2 emissions from all sources, including deforestation, will reach 40.6 billion tonnes, just below the record level in 2019, the report by more than 100 scientists showed. About 90 percent of that is the result of burning fossil fuels. The data suggests the rise is consistent with underlying trends and deeply worrying, said Peters, a co-author of the study.“Emissions are now five percent above what they were when the Paris Agreement was signed” in 2015, he noted.