Globe bounces back to nearly 2019 carbon pollution levels

Glasgow, Nov 4 (BUS): A new scientific study finds that the dramatic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from the pandemic shutdown has largely disappeared in a puff of coal smoke, mostly from China.

The first nine months of this year put emissions slightly below 2019 levels, a group of scientists who track the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. They estimate that in 2021 the world will have released 36.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, compared to 36.7 billion metric tons two years ago, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

At the height of the pandemic last year, emissions fell to 34.8 billion metric tons, so this year’s jump is 4.9 percent, according to updated calculations by the Global Carbon Project.

While most countries have returned to pre-pandemic trends, increased pollution in China was mostly responsible for a rebound in global numbers to 2019 levels rather than a dramatic decline, said study co-author Corinne Liqueur, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia in the kingdom. United.

With significantly cleaner air in 2020 in cities from India to Italy, some people may have hoped the world would be on the right track to reduce carbon pollution, but scientists said that was not the case.

“It’s not the pandemic that will get us out of the corner,” Liqueur said in an interview at Climate Talks in Glasgow, where she and her colleagues are presenting their findings. It’s the decisions that are made this week and next week. This is what will make us turn the corner. The pandemic is not changing the nature of our economy.”

If the world were to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, it would have only 11 years left at current emission levels before it’s too late, the paper said. The global temperature has risen by 1.1°C (2°F) since the late 19th century.

“What the carbon emissions numbers show is that emissions (correction for decline and recovery from COVID19) are now basically flattened. That’s good news,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, who was not part of the report. enough. We need to start cutting (emissions).”

The study said China’s emissions were 7 percent higher in 2021 than in 2019. In comparison, India’s emissions were only 3 percent higher. In contrast, the United States, the European Union and the rest of the world pollute less this year than they did in 2019.

Liqueuri said China’s jump was mostly from burning coal and natural gas and was part of a massive economic stimulus to recover from the lockdown. In addition, she said, China’s lockdown ended much earlier than the rest of the world, so the country had more time to recover economically and pump more carbon into the air.

LeQuere said the “green recovery” that many countries talked about in their stimulus packages is taking longer to appear in emissions cuts because the rebounding economies first use up the energy mix they already have.

The numbers are based on data from governments on energy use, travel, industrial production and other factors. Emissions this year averaged 115 metric tons of carbon dioxide going into the air every second.

Breakthrough Institute climate director Zeke Hausfather, who was not part of the study, predicts that “there is a good chance 2022 will set a new record for global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.”

MI