It is “now inevitable” that the threshold of 1.5°C of global warming will be exceeded “constantly over several years”. There is a one in two chance that this will happen in just seven years, scientists from the Global Carbon Project warned on Tuesday, calling for action.
According to this baseline study presented at the UN climate meeting in Dubai, CO2 emissions produced by the use of coal, gas and oil around the world for heating, lighting or driving are expected to increase. indeed break a new record in 2023.
Maintain the objective at 2°C
2024 is already shaping up to be a dark year for global warming, with the rise of the El Niño climate phenomenon over the Pacific which risks harming vegetation, which humanity needs to absorb part of carbon emissions. .
In 2015, with the Paris Agreement treaty, world leaders set themselves the objective of not exceeding the threshold of +1.5°C to avoid repeated heat waves and profound changes, even irreversible, inflicted on nature by human action.
“Leaders meeting at COP28 will need to agree on rapid reductions in fossil fuel emissions, even to maintain the 2°C target,” says British climate scientist Pierre Friedlingstein, who supervised the study involving 150 researchers from around the world.
“We must act now”
However, “measures aimed at reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels remain terribly slow,” criticizes the scientist. “The time remaining between now and the threshold of +1.5°C is shrinking at full speed, we must act now,” he added.
Last year, these scientists estimated that this critical level of rise of 1.5°C would be effective in nine years. In detail, the study estimates that total global carbon dioxide emissions added to the atmosphere in 2023 will reach 40.9 billion tonnes (GtCO2). This is four times more than in 1960, and the emissions curve, instead of reducing, is on a plateau over ten years, the researchers point out.