Scientists Warn Fossil-Fuel Emissions Hit Record High This Year

This year may have seen the highest levels of carbon emissions since records began, new research has found.

Around 36.8 billion tonnes of CO₂ from fossil fuels were released into the atmosphere in 2023, 1.1 percent more than in 2022. This is according to predictions made in the annual Global Carbon Budget report. This is an increased rate of annual growth than the average of 0.5 percent over the last 10 years, according to the report, recently published in the journal Earth System Science Data.

"We have been burning more fossil fuels in 2023. Globally, fossil CO₂ emissions went up by about 1.1 percent this year, relative to last year," Pierre Friedlingstein, a climate professor at the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute, told Newsweek. "This brings fossil CO₂ emissions to a record high, 1.4 percent above the 2019 pre-COVID-19 levels."

The amount of CO₂ emitted from fossil fuels is therefore 6 percent higher than in 2015. This was the year when the Paris Agreement was negotiated at COP21, with 174 states and the European Union agreeing to limit global warming to a 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) rise by 2050, compared to pre-industrial levels.

"Yes, many countries deploy more and more renewables, but it doesn't yet replace fossil energy globally. For China or India, the growth in energy demand is large, deployment of renewable only match part of it; the rest comes from increase in fossil," Friedlingstein said.

CO₂ from coal burning alone is also expected to rise by 1.1 percent, despite coal use declining in the U.S. and Europe, and CO₂ from oil is predicted to rise by 1.5 percent. This is primarily due to increases in aviation after the pandemic, but also due to increased fossil-fuel emissions from India and China: China's emissions alone are estimated to have grown 4 percent since last year, while India's have risen by 8.2 percent.

"China has seen continued strong growth in wind and solar power, without which emissions growth would have been much higher," Jan Ivar Korsbakken, a senior researcher at CICERO (Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research) said in a statement. "But solar and wind couldn't meet high electricity demand growth and low hydropower production due to drought, so coal power generation also grew. In addition, increased travel and domestic transport led to strong growth in oil consumption, after a drop during the COVID lockdowns in 2022," Korsbakken said.

U.S. fossil CO₂ emissions have declined by 3 percent since last year, mostly due to reductions in coal burning. The last time U.S. coal emissions were this low was 1903, according to the report. Meanwhile, EU emissions have dropped by 7.4 percent.

The total net amount of CO₂ released, both from fossil fuels and changes to land use, is expected to amount to 40.9 billion tonnes in 2023. While forests are being regrown, sucking CO₂ out of the air, they are also being deforested in other regions, and being burned by wildfires. Canada's recent extreme wildfire season resulted in emissions six to eight times higher than average.

"Deforestation also leads to CO₂ emissions. Current level of CO₂ emission from land use change is about 10 percent of fossil CO₂ emissions," Friedlingstein said. "Both fossil emissions and deforestation emissions need to go down to zero as rapidly as possible to limit further warming."

All in all, atmospheric CO₂ levels in 2023 are projected to average 419.3 parts per million, 51 percent above pre-industrial levels. The Global Carbon Budget says there is a 50 percent chance that the Paris Agreement's 1.5 degree C limit will be exceeded consistently in about seven years.

"The latest CO₂ data shows that current efforts are not profound or widespread enough to put global emissions on a downward trajectory towards Net Zero, but some trends in emissions are beginning to budge, showing climate policies can be effective," Corinne Le Quéré, a Royal Society research professor at the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences, said in the statement.

"Global emissions at today's level are rapidly increasing the CO₂ concentration in our atmosphere, causing additional climate change and increasingly serious and growing impacts.

"All countries need to decarbonize their economies faster than they are at present to avoid the worse impacts of climate change," Le Quéré added.

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