COP29: Global carbon emissions to scale new peak in 2024, no signs of pledged transition

COP29 stands of the 29th Conference of Parties, where the parties are nations that have members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Emissions from burning fossil fuels are projected to post a new record in 2024, with an anticipated peak not yet in sight, an international team of scientists said in their latest annual report.

Fossil carbon dioxide emissions are projected to reach 37.4 billion tonnes, up 0.8 percent from 2023, the 2024 Global Carbon Budget released on November 13 reported. With projected emissions from land-use change, such as deforestation, of 4.2 billion tonnes, total CO2 emissions are projected to be 41.6 billion tonnes in 2024, up from 40.6 billion tonnes last year, the global team of over 120 scientists said.

Despite the urgent need to cut emissions to slow down the climate crisis, the researchers said there was still no sign that the world has reached a peak in fossil CO2 emissions. However, over the past 10 years, fossil fuel emissions have risen but land-use change emissions have declined on an average, leaving overall emissions roughly level over that period.

This year though, both fossil and land-use change CO2 emissions are set to rise, with droughts across the world worsening emissions from deforestation and forest degradation fires during the El Niño climate event of 2023-24.

"The impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly dramatic, yet we still see no sign that burning of fossil fuels has peaked," Pierre Friedlingstein of Exeter's Global Systems Institute, who led the study, said in a statement.

With over 40 billion tonnes released each year, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise, driving increasingly dangerous global warming. "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 preindustrial levels," Friedlingstein said.

COP29 stands of the 29th Conference of Parties, where the parties are nations that have members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The annual summit is being held in Azerbaijan's Baku from November 11-22.

"In terms of emissions peaking, we do not see that happening yet," said Mike Sullivan, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter. "We really need large decreases and we need to go towards net zero to avoid dangerous climate change," his colleague Stephen Sitch said.

Net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere, which can be achieved through a combination of reducing and removing emissions.

Globally, fossil fuel CO₂ emissions come from coal (41 percent), oil (32 percent) and gas (21 percent). China contributed 32 percent of the total emissions, followed by the US (13 percent), India (8 percent) and the European Union (7 percent).

Accelerating rates of global warming increases the risks of more extreme weather events that put millions of people at risk and threaten economic growth. Every 1°C rise in global average atmospheric temperature would equate to a 12 percent hit to the world’s gross domestic product, according to a recent assessment by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a New York-based non-profit.

At the current rate of emissions, the Global Carbon Budget team estimated a 50 percent chance that global warming will exceed 1.5°C consistently in about six years. Global temperatures were already 1.48°C above the preindustrial level in 2023, and it is virtually certain it would be more than 1.5°C in 2024, Copernicus Climate Change Service, an European research organisation, said earlier in November.

A downward trend in global CO2 emissions is required to meet net zero targets and minimise the impacts of climate change. Climate negotiators have gathered in Baku to thrash out a consensus on ensuring finance to mitigate and adapt to the climate emergency.