2021 global CO2 emissions near record levels

Global CO2 emissions caused mainly by burning fossil fuels are set to rebound in 2021 to pre-Covid levels, with China’s share increasing to nearly a third of the total, according to an assessment published Thursday.

Overall, CO2 pollution this year will be just shy of the record set in 2019, according to the annual report from the Global Carbon Project consortium, released as nearly 200 nations at the COP26 climate summit confront the threat of catastrophic warming.

Emissions from gas and highly polluting coal will rise this year by more than they dropped in 2020 due to the pandemic-driven economic slowdown.

Capping the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels -- as per the Paris Agreement -- would limit mortality and damage, but requires slashing carbon emissions nearly in half by 2030 and to net-zero by 2050, the UN’s climate science authority has warned.

“This report is a reality check,” co-author Corrine Le Querre, a professor of climate change science at the Britain’s University of East Anglia, told AFP.

“It shows what’s happening in the real world while we are here in Glasgow talking about tackling climate change.”

Waiting for the peak

The new report will come as bad news at the 13-day COP26 meeting, where a diplomatic spat saw the United States accuse China and Russia of failing to step up their climate action ambitions.

China on its own will account for 31 per cent of global emissions this year after its economy accelerated out of the economic lull ahead of others.

Carbon pollution from oil remains well below 2019 levels, but could surge as the transport and aviation sectors recover from pandemic disruption, said the study in the journal Earth System Science Data.

Taken together, the findings mean that future C02 emissions could eclipse the 40-billion tonne record set in 2019, which some have predicted -- and many hoped -- would be a peak.

“We cannot rule out more overall growth of emissions in 2022 as the transport sector continues to recover,” Le Quere said. “We are bound to have ups and downs over the next few years.”

The latest figures are in line with a recent International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast that emissions from energy would hit an all-time high in 2023, “with no clear peak insight”.

“Perhaps we will start talking about peak emissions in 2023 or 2024?”, said Glen Peters, research director at the Centre for International Climate Research in Oslo and a co-author of the report.