Climate crisis: Global CO2 emissions rising - despite decline in oil
The world is consuming less oil - and yet greenhouse gas emissions are still rising. Actually, we should have long since turned the corner to curb the crisis.
In 2026, global CO2 emissions are expected to amount to 43.3 billion tonnes, surpassing the 42.8 billion tonnes recorded the previous year, according to the Global Carbon Project. To tackle the climate crisis, emissions must decline significantly, but current trends show a small decrease of 0.4 percent in emissions from fossil fuels, falling to 38.2 billion tonnes.
This reduction was largely due to a 1.9 percent decline in oil consumption, likely a response to the Iran war and its severe consequences. While renewable energy and electric vehicles are increasingly offsetting the growth in energy demand, more rapid acceleration is needed to ensure emissions peak and then decline sustainably.
However, land use changes, such as fires in drained peatlands and forest degradation in Equatorial Asia, are contributing to overall emissions rising. These factors indicate early signs of the beginning El Niño, with its full impact expected in the following year. To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the world should emit no more than 150 billion tonnes of CO2 – a budget expected to be exhausted in less than four years at the current rate.
Activating CO2 removal is necessary, through measures like afforestation and novel technologies such as carbon capture and storage. Yet, these play an extremely minor role, with new carbon capture methods removing only the equivalent of fossil CO2 emissions for 30 minutes annually. Reducing emissions must be a top priority, alongside developing these technologies.
The recent UN "Emission Gap Report" suggests that global greenhouse gas emissions must plummet significantly by the end of the century to return to 1.5 degrees Celsius or below – by 18 percent by 2030, 45 percent by 2035, and 69 percent by 2040, compared to 2025 levels. Such drastic reductions are not anticipated, even if countries implement all their planned climate measures; emissions would only decrease by up to 8 percent by 2030 and 15 percent by 2035.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
