SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: The environmental toll of the Ukraine war will last a year. According to scientists who track emissions, the world's burning of coal, oil, and natural gas this year is putting 1% more heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air than last year, which is bad news for the fight against climate change but with an odd twist.
According to a study released early Friday at international climate talks in Egypt by scientists at the Global Carbon Project, China's carbon pollution was down 0.9% this year compared to 2021, while emissions in the United States were 1.5% higher. Both are long-term trends that are diametrically opposed. Until this year, American emissions had been steadily declining while Chinese emissions had been increasing.
According to study lead author Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter, it is a reaction to the pandemic and possibly a bit of the energy crisis caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in both cases. He claims that these two factors have made this year's data chaotic and difficult to draw trends from. According to him, China's lock-down in 2022 to try to control renewed COVID-19 is a major factor in that country's drop.
The majority of the increase was in transportation - cars and air travel—as people's restrictions on travel during the pandemic wore off. Overall, scientists believe this is bad news because it brings the Earth closer to the globally agreed-upon threshold of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.
"It means we should brace ourselves to blow past the target and enter a world that humans have never known," said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University who was not part of the research team.
According to Friedlingstein's team and other scientific reports, Earth can only emit 380 billion metric tonnes (419 US tonnes) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere before reaching the 1.5-degree mark. That's roughly 9 to 10 years' worth of emissions, implying that the world will likely reach that point around 2031 or 2032.
"The window for 1.5 is closing," Friedlingstein said.
The world is on track to emit 36.6 billion metric tonnes (40.3 billion US tonnes) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 2022. That is the mass of carbon dioxide emitted by the Great Pyramid of Giza every 75 minutes. About 40% of carbon dioxide is produced by burning coal, 33% by burning oil, and 22% by burning natural gas.
According to Friedlingstein, carbon emissions from fossil fuels fell 5.3% in 2020 but rebounded 5.6% last year. Using data provided by the top carbon-emitting countries, the team calculates emissions levels through the early fall. They have now completely erased the pandemic drop and are slowly rising again.
The team also considers overall emissions, as well as the effects of land use. When land use is taken into account, emissions are flat, not slightly rising, he claims.