Year after year, the world continues to fail to bend the CO emissions curve2 of fossil origin. These emissions linked to the combustion of coal, oil and gas are expected to reach a record level again in 2024, after an increase of 0.8% compared to 2023, according to the latest report from the Global Carbon Project, a consortium of more of one hundred scientists from 80 international laboratories working on the carbon cycle. Their results, published in the journal Earth system science dataon Wednesday, November 13, constitute a new alert for leaders meeting at the world climate conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.
At this rate, there is now a one in two chance of sustainably exceeding 1.5°C of global warming in six years compared to the pre-industrial era, the most ambitious goal of the Paris agreement. This threshold should already be crossed in 2024, but the limit of the international treaty is understood over a long period and not over a single year. “I think it is now completely unrealistic to think that we can limit warming to 1.5°C.says Philippe Ciais, research director of the Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory of the Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission, and one of the authors of the study. The vise even tightens so as not to exceed 2°C. »
However, is the long-awaited emissions peak within reach? Some scientists maintain a glimmer of hope. “I feel like it’s imminent. There are many signs of progress at the national level”Judge Glen Peters, a climatologist at the International Center for Climate and Environment Research, based in Oslo, also an author of the study. In its annual report published on October 14, the International Energy Agency went in the same direction. “Emissions are slowing but it remains difficult to say when their growth will reach zero before, above all, decreasing”says, for his part, Philippe Ciais.
In general, global CO emissions2the main greenhouse gas and main cause of climate change, is expected to reach 41.6 billion tons in 2024, 2.5% more than in 2023 (based on extrapolations, since the year is not over yet).
Most of it comes from the burning of fossil fuels, whose emissions are expected to account for 37.4 billion tons in 2024. “Fossil emissions are increasing four times more slowly in this decade than in the previous one, that is progress”says Pierre Friedlingstein, a climatologist at the University of Exeter, who led the study.
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