The opening of new thermal power plants, increased electrical demand, heat waves, or the increase of the fleet of cars are some of the reasons that explain the increase in
The CO2 emissions have skyrocketed in 2018, with India, China and the united States marking the worrying trend, according to the report by the Global Carbon Project published in the journal Nature and presented at the climate change summit in Katowice (Poland). The estimated increase to the end of the year is 2.7%, compared to an upturn of 1.6% experienced in the previous year and after the stabilization period 2014-16, which was set as the expected turning point.
The opening of new power plants for thermal coal in Asia, the largest electrical demand in the united states by the extreme cold in winter, heat waves in summer and the increase of the fleet of cars with combustion engines (in spite of the emergence of electric vehicles) are some of the reasons that explain the increase of emissions it leaves in the air the commitments of the Paris agreement to limit the rise of temperatures to two degrees (focusing “efforts” not to exceed 1.5 degrees).
“Every year that you go up the emissions we are putting at risk the savings, the homes and the lives of billions of people,” he warned Christiana Figueres, the architect of the Paris agreement from his post at the UN, embarked now in the so-called “Mission 2020”.
“We are in the era of exponential growth and we have to step on the accelerator of the “solutions” to win this race,” warned Figueres, your step-by-Katowice. “The renewable energy and electric cars are expanding rapidly, but the impacts of climate change and the episodes of extreme weather are accelerating, too.”
“there Was hope in China behind coal and the consummation of the movement towards renewables, but the last two years it has been shown that it is not easy to say goodbye quickly,” he told The Guardian the director of the International Centre for Climate Change Research in Norway, Jan Ivan Korsbakken.
In the three years since the Paris agreement, the banks have been funded at the global scale (primarily in China and Japan) the construction of 120 coal-fired power plants with the equivalent of more than 400,000 million euros. The campaign of “divestment” in fossil fuels deep-rooted in the united States, or the efforts of countries such as the Uk (which held in 2017 on the first day without burning coal) have been insufficient to drive the rotation energy at the global level.
In the U.S., coal use has fallen, however a 40% since 2005 and is at the lowest level since 1979. Despite the decision of Donald Trump to leave the Paris agreement, it is expected that the emissions become lower in a way “natural” in 2019, for the implementation of the natural gas and by the growth of renewables.
“The global increase in emissions is of concern because to deal with the changing climate we need to reduce them eventually to zero,” said Corinne Le Quéré, an expert from the british university of East Anglia and co-author of the report from the Global Carbon Project. “It is true that until now we have not seen action on the part of Governments. Let’s hope that the commitments are real from now on and that the 2020 is the true turning point”.
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