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'Bad news': CO2 emissions to rise in 2018, says IEA chief
Climate
CGTN

2018-10-19 22:51 GMT+8

Energy sector's carbon emissions will rise in 2018 after hitting record levels the year before, dimming prospects for meeting Paris climate treaty goals, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

The energy sector accounts for 80 percent of global CO2 emissions, with most of the rest caused by deforestation and agriculture, so its performance is key to efforts to rein in rising world temperatures.

"I'm sorry. I have very bad news for you," IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told guests at a diplomatic function hosted by the Polish embassy in Paris.

International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director  Fatih Birol at a press conference, July 2018. /AFP Photo

"Emissions this year will increase once again, and we're going to have the COP meeting when global emissions reach a record high," he said, referring to the December UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland.

After remaining flat for three years, total global CO2 emissions in 2017 rose by 1.4 percent.

The meeting in Katowice is tasked with finalizing the "operating manual" for the 195-nation Paris Agreement, which enters into force in 2020 and calls for capping global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius, and at 1.5 degrees Celsius if possible.

"The chances of meeting such ambitious targets, in my view, are becoming weaker and weaker every year, every month," Birol told invitees, including former French prime minister Laurent Fabius, who shepherded the 2015 treaty to a successful conclusion, and Poland's junior minister Michal Kurtyka, who will preside over the December summit.

With one degree Celsius of warming so far, the Earth has seen a crescendo of deadly extreme weather, including heatwaves, droughts, floods and deadly storm surges made worse by rising seas.

The farmlands in north Germany have suffered an epochal drought (Top) due to extreme heat and record-low rainfall while villages in the Spanish Island of Mallorca have been flooded due to a landslide (Bottom), October 10, 2018. /VCG Photo

Next two years are critical

Even taking into account voluntary national pledges to slash carbon emissions caused by burning fossil fuels, the planet is currently on track to warm by an unlivable three to four degrees Celcius by century's end.

A major UN report released earlier this month said that capping average global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celcius above preindustrial levels would prevent the worst ravages of climate change.

But reaching that goal would mean reducing CO2 emissions by nearly half compared with 2010 levels within a dozen years, and becoming "carbon neutral" –with no excess CO2 leaching into the atmosphere – by 2050.

The UN report also details humanity's "carbon budget" – the amount of CO2 we can emit and still stay under the 1.5 degrees Celsius ceiling.

At current rates of carbon pollution, that budget would be used up within two decades.

Fabius, who said he had accepted an invitation to help Poland prepare for the December climate summit, insisted that the next two years are critical.

"Climate change is a near-term problem," he said. "When you look at the tragic consequences, it is today, not in 50 years."

"This is not a negotiation like any other," he added. "If you fail, you cannot start over again."

(Top photo: Chimneys emitting smoke. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): AFP

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