Record new emissions data adds urgency to COP29

(Baku, Azerbaijan) — New research released on Wednesday saying that emissions from fossil fuels have reached a record high in 2024 has added a sense of urgency to negotiations at COP29 in Baku.

Fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are expected to reach 37.4 billion tonnes in 2024, up 0.8% from 2023, according to the Global Carbon Project report, which is produced annually by a team of more than 120 scientists.

Taking into account projected emissions from land-use change (such as deforestation) of 4.2 billion tonnes, total CO2 emissions are expected to reach 41.6 billion tonnes in 2024, up from 40.6 billion tonnes last year, the report said.

In the last decade, fossil CO2 emissions have increased while land-use change CO2 emissions have on average declined, which left overall emissions roughly level over that period, it added.

In 2024, the scientists expect both fossil and land-use change CO2 emissions to rise, due to drought and El Niño weather patterns causing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation fires.

The rising level of CO2 in the atmosphere is driving “increasingly dangerous global warming,” the researchers warned, providing a stark warning in the middle of the first week of COP29 in Baku.

“The impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly dramatic, yet we still see no sign that burning of fossil fuels has peaked,” said Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, from Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, which led the study.

“Time is running out to meet the Paris Agreement goals – and world leaders meeting at COP29 must bring about rapid and deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions to give us a chance of staying well below 2°C warming above pre-industrial levels,” he stressed.

Professor Corinne Le Quéré, a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of East Anglia, said: “Despite another rise in global emissions this year, the latest data shows evidence of widespread climate action, with the growing penetration of renewables and electric cars displacing fossil fuels, and decreasing deforestation emissions in the past decades confirmed for the first time.”

Meanwhile Dr Glen Peters, from the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, said: “There are many signs of positive progress at the country level, and a feeling that a peak in global fossil CO2 emissions is imminent, but the global peak remains elusive.

“Climate action is a collective problem, and while gradual emission reductions are occurring in some countries, increases continue in others.

“Progress in all countries needs to accelerate fast enough to put global emissions on a downward trajectory towards net zero,” he added.

Professor Friedlingstein warned that “until we reach net zero CO2 emissions globally, world temperatures will continue to rise and cause increasingly severe impacts.”

Globally, gas is the fossil fuel that the researchers project will increase the most in 2024, by 2.4%, compared to 0.2% for coal and 0.9% for oil.

China’s emissions — which account for 32% of the global total — are projected to marginally increase by 0.2%. India’s emissions — 8% of the global total — are projected to increase by 4.6%, and U.S. emissions — 13% of the global total — are projected to decrease by 0.6%.

European Union emissions — 7% of the global total — are projected to decrease by 3.8%, while emissions in the rest of the world — that is 38% of the global total — are projected to increase by 1.1%, the report said.

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