New figures are showing that more CO2 in 2025 has been released than ever before.
With talks in Brazil scheduled to end today, countries remained divided on a road map to transition away from fossil fuels. This is another sign that efforts to fight climate change by cutting emissions are moving far too slowly to meet international targets.
The better news is that emissions have grown much less quickly over the past decade as renewables have moved ahead. For many this offers hope that the world’s warming trend can still be curbed.
A separate analysis by Ember suggests that fossil fuel use in electricity generation has flat lined in 2025 mainly due to the rapid growth of solar power. This could mean that global emissions may be nearing a peak, but it’s hard to say exactly when that might come.
Whilst carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for 2025 are an estimate, with the year not yet complete and they show a mixed picture. Emissions from fossil fuels and cement are forecast to increase yet again to 38.1bn tonnes of CO2, according to the Global Carbon Budget team, which comprises more than 130 scientists from 21 countries. This is a record high, Professor Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor at UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, said: “efforts to tackle climate change are visible, with 35 countries succeeding in reducing their emissions while growing their economies, twice as much as a decade ago, and important progress in reducing reliance on fossil fuels elsewhere. Progress is still much too fragile to translate into the sustained decreases in global emissions needed to tackle climate change. The emerging impacts of climate change on the carbon sinks are worrying and stresses further the need for urgent action”.
The Climate Action Tracker research group finds that based on current policies, warming could reach 2.6C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Dr Bill Hare, from the Climate Action Tracker team said that “it’s a diabolical dilemma. Things could go really badly. We could walk away from this COP without taking the right kind of action, and entrenching fossil gas and oil, and we’ll push towards 2.5C [or] 3C warming for sure.”But on the other hand, the chance is there… to do exactly the opposite, and to build on the momentum of the technology changes going on globally,” he added.
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