Greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized

Amounts of global emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not changed much over the last three years, despite the high pace of economic development. Now humanity has a chance to lock in recent gains and, most importantly, to improve these indicators.

November 14 Global Carbon Project released its annual analysis of trends in the global carbon cycle, noting the continuing slowdown in the growth of emissions.

Global pollution carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industry has risen by more than 3% per year in the 2000s, but growth has slowed in 2010. Over the last three years the number of СО2в the atmosphere stabilized at the level of 36.4 billion metric tons. The reason for the rise in the 2000s, and the subsequent stabilization of the researchers believe that the activities of China. In this country the growth in coal consumption slowed in 2012. A significant contribution to the stabilization brought the United States in 2012, 2015 and 2016.



China produces 29% of global carbon dioxide. In addition, the UPS and downs of the Chinese economy directly affect the growth of global emissions. Their number decreased by 0.7% in 2015. According to forecasts, this figure will drop by another 0.5 percent in 2016.

"It's hard to say whether the slowdown is due to the successful and "smooth" restructuring of the Chinese economy, or is it a sign of economic instability. However, the sudden reduction of emissions gives hope that the world's largest Issuer of gases may further reduce them," says Glen Peters, one of the authors of the study.

Global decline since 2007 is influenced by the United States. In 2015, growth declined by 2.5% and projected to fall another 1.7% this year. Against the background of significant reduction in the consumption of fossil coal for the last two years has increased the consumption of oil and gas. This country is the second largest source of CO2 pollution. It accounts for 15% of the global contribution.

Some researchers believe that the election of Donald trump for President of the United States can influence the increase of global CO2 pollution. It is not clear whether to continue the reduction of emissions from the United States with trump because he was going to abandon the environmental policy of the Obama administration, including from the plan "Clean energy."

Peters hastens to dispel doubts on this score: "If we concentrate on the results of the elections in the United States, it is worth noting that the energy of the Sun, wind, and gas continues to displace coal in U.S. electricity production. Trump plans to restore the coal industry is unable to counteract the existing market forces, leading to the weakening of the coal."

In 2015, the European Union grew by 1.4%. According to analysts, such a small blip in the long term will result in a further increase in the amount of pollutants in the atmosphere. The sudden jump is associated with the increase in gas consumption. 28 member States of the EU owns 10% of global emissions.

Positive trends in Europe, China and the United States overlap with the results of India and other developing countries. On average, over the past decade, emissions have increased by 6% each year. In 2015, this figure increased by 5.2% and continues to grow. In principle, this result is consistent with the long-term plan of India to double domestic coal production by 2020. They account for 6.3% of CO2 emissions.



However, global warming continues to increase its pace. According to preliminary data of the world meteorological organization (WMO), 2016 will be the hottest in the history of meteorological observations. Experts have documented the rise in average temperature of 1.2 degrees Celsius.

This result is already close to the limit set by the global agreement on climate change, adopted in Paris last year. It encourages to keep temperature rise within 1.5-2 degrees Celsius. WMO claims that 16 out of the 17 warmest years belong to this century. The only exception was 1998, which at the same time, was a year of El Nino.

In the words of petteri Taalas, the head of the world meteorological organization, the Arctic part of Russia, the air warmed by 6-7 degrees more in average temperature. "We used to change temperatures in fractions of a degree, but this is different," he says.

Groups of environmentalists and climate scientists said the report underlines the need for rapid reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are responsible for warming the planet.

Professor Corinne Le Coeur, Director of the Tyndall Centre University of East Anglia noted that the majority of CO2 emissions absorbed by the ocean and trees. The reason for the rise of the temperature in the 2015 and 2016 lies in the fact that at this time the trees are unable to absorb more carbon dioxide due to dry conditions related to El Nino. "The level of CO2 in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million units of volume and continues to rise. This causes the planet to heat up until the amount of emissions is not reduced to zero," she said.

According to the forecasts of Peters, emissions growth in the next few years will depend on whether the principles of energy and climate policy to continue the positive trend and significantly increase the desire of countries to coordinate their actions with the temperature objectives of the Paris agreement.

The result of the work of the Global Carbon Project in the field of global atmospheric pollution by carbon dioxide and its influence on the atmosphere, land and ocean is one of the main tools for the scientific community designed to combine measurement and statistics on human activities with the analysis of the simulation result. published

 

Source: geektimes.ru/post/282616/