Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and the world’s cement industry, mainly responsible for global warming affecting humanity, will rise again in 2025. Specifically, 1.1% compared to 2024, as predicted by the Global Carbon Budget Report, the analysis involving 130 international experts and which this year celebrates its twentieth edition. The headline, for another year, is that emissions will rise to 38.1 gigatons. Since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015, whose primary goal is to reduce greenhouse gases emitted so that they practically disappear by mid-century, carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 9.8%.
There is no doubt that the data is bad because it exacerbates this crisis. The window is increasingly narrowing to ensure that the increase in average temperatures remains within the safety margins stipulated in the Paris Agreement itself. The agreement stipulates that the average increase over land should remain below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, and as far as possible below 1.5 degrees Celsius. About half of the carbon dioxide produced by human activity has been accumulating in the atmosphere for centuries. If we continue at the same pace as 2025, in just four years the so-called carbon budget needed to keep the average global temperature below 1.5 degrees will be exhausted.
In fact, it is considered inevitable by the world of science that this barrier of 1.5 will be overcome in a stable manner in the next decade. The only remaining option for complying with the Paris Agreement is for this override to be only temporary, which would require radical reductions in other short-lived greenhouse gases in the air, such as methane, and uncertain technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The report also indicates that the carbon budget to achieve the 2°C target will be exhausted within 25 years if the current pace continues. Pep Canadel, one of the report’s coordinators and executive director of the Carpool Global Project, talks about a kind of cat-and-mouse game, as the world’s population and energy demand grow year after year, and renewable energy sources, although increasing significantly, do not fully cover all energy needs and replace fossil fuels.
But there is also some hope. “The peak emissions are very close,” Canadel says. “We are only a few years away,” and that will be within this decade, although Cannadel does not dare limit it to one year. The global emissions cap will be reached through “the explosive growth of renewable energy sources.” But reaching the peak, this expert warns, will not be “enough,” because what should happen immediately afterward is for it to quickly decline to zero.
According to UN calculations, new plans submitted by countries under the Paris Agreement would reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases – not just carbon dioxide – by 12% in 2035. While this is good data, it is not enough to stay within the margin of safety: according to the UN, these emissions would need to be 55% lower within 10 years to comply with the 1.5 and 35% of the 2°C path.
These reductions, so far, are only estimates of what can be achieved through the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the promises of the states parties to the treaty. But what has happened so far is that carbon dioxide emissions in the world have increased since its signing by the aforementioned 9.8%.
Yes, there is a slowdown in the growth rate. In the decade immediately preceding it, between 2005 and 2015, the increase was 18.8%, nearly double the rate in the following decade.
Either way, whether in growth rates or near-peak emissions and fall projections for 2035, China is key. It is the world’s leading source of carbon dioxide emissions – accumulating 32% globally – but it is also the top country in terms of installing renewable energy sources and developing electric vehicles within and beyond its borders.
For 2025, the report expects China’s CO2 to grow by 0.4%, but with a large range of uncertainty (between -0.9% and 2%), Canadel admits. To know the final data we will have to wait until next year. However, for the second year in a row there is a clear slowdown in emissions. The authors explain that this is due to “moderate growth in energy consumption combined with extraordinary growth in renewable energy generation,” which has led to a stagnation in coal use.
For India, which accounts for 8% of global emissions, an increase of 1.4% is expected, which is much lower than the pace recorded so far. In addition to the growth of renewable energy sources, weather conditions have reduced the need for energy this year.
This is the opposite of what happened in the European Union (6% of global emissions), where cold and windy conditions in many parts of Europe led to an increase in natural gas use and a 0.4% increase in carbon dioxide. This potential increase breaks the ongoing trend in emissions in the EU. But Canadel is not worried because he considers the matter a temporary matter related to the weather.
He is most concerned about the situation in the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter with a 13% share. The report shows a 1.9% increase in emissions for the year. This growth, which breaks the trend in recent years, is linked to rising natural gas prices (because the United States exported much more due to the invasion of Ukraine). This has led to an increase in the use of coal, which has been declining due to its higher costs compared to natural gas. This is the most dangerous type of fossil fuel when it comes to global warming.
Regarding the future in the United States, Canadel believes that Donald Trump’s policies against renewable energy sources and in favor of fossil fuels, the main sponsors of the Republican Party, will have an impact on that country’s emissions. They will fall, this expert predicts, but they will fall more slowly than expected under the previous administration.
35 countries lead the way
Canadel highlights two other positive points in this year’s edition. On the one hand, it is a group of countries – 35 that currently accumulate 27% of the planet’s total carbon dioxide emissions – that have significantly reduced their emissions at the same time as their economies have grown between 2015 and 2024. This shows the path that could be followed. These include most members of the European Union, including Germany, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and South Korea. In the previous decade, 2005-2014, their number was half that number, 18.
Another point that this expert highlights is the decline in carbon dioxide emissions associated with deforestation and changes in land use, which will decline again in 2015. According to preliminary calculations in the report, once the gases emitted by the fossil sector are combined with those associated with land use, this year’s emissions are expected to reach 42.1 gigatonnes, slightly less than 42.4 gigatonnes in 2024.
About The Author
