New Delhi, Nov 13: India accounts for eight per cent of the global total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and it is expected to increase by 4.6 per cent in 2024, according to a new report released on Wednesday, ahead of the UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The report by Global Carbon Project, involving an international team of more than 120 scientists, showed that global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have reached a record high in 2024 — 37.4 billion tonnes in 2024, up 0.8 per cent from 2023 levels.
The report led by the University of Exeter showed “there is ‘no sign’ that the world has reached a peak in fossil CO2 emissions”. This is despite the urgent need to cut emissions to slow climate change.
It showed that emissions from coal are expected to rise by 0.2 per cent; oil by 0.9 per cent; and gas by 2.4 per cent. China’s emissions — which account for 32 per cent of the global total — are projected to marginally increase by 0.2 per cent, while US emissions (which account for 13 per cent of the global total) are projected to decrease by 0.6 per cent.
Notably, emissions from the European Union (accounting for 7 per cent of the global total) will decrease by 3.8 per cent. Emissions in the rest of the world (accounting for 38 per cent of the global total) are projected to increase by 1.1 per cent, said the report, published in the journal Earth System Science Data.
Currently, more than 40 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions are released each year. This is increasing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere — driving increasingly dangerous global warming.
“Time is running out to meet the Paris Agreement goals,” said Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, who led the study. He called on world leaders meeting at the upcoming COP29 to “bring about rapid and deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions”, which will help the world to stay well below 2 degrees Celsius warming above pre-industrial levels.
This study estimates the remaining “carbon budget” before the 1.5 degrees Celsius target is breached consistently over multiple years, not just for a single year. At the current rate of emissions, the Global Carbon Budget team estimates a 50 per cent chance global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius consistently in about six years.
IANS