‘This year we see yet another rise in global fossil CO2 emissions, when we need a rapid decline.’
By Brendan Montague, The Ecologist (Creative Commons 4.0)
Global carbon emissions in 2022 remain at record levels – with no sign of the decrease that is urgently needed to limit warming to 1.5°C, according to the Global Carbon Project science team.
If current emissions levels persist, there is now a 50% chance that global warming of 1.5°C will be exceeded in nine years.
The new report projects total global CO2 emissions of 40.6 billion tonnes (GtCO2) in 2022. This is fuelled by fossil CO2 emissions which are projected to rise 1.0% compared to 2021, reaching 36.6 GtCO2 – slightly above the 2019 pre-COVID-19 levels. Emissions from land-use change, such as deforestation, are projected to be 3.9 GtCO2 in 2022.
Global Carbon Budget 2022 — Schematic representation of the overall perturbation of the global carbon cycle caused by anthropogenic activities averaged globally for the decade 2012–2021. See legends for the corresponding arrows and units. The uncertainty in the atmospheric CO2 growth rate is very small (±0.02 GtC yr−1) and is neglected for the figure. The anthropogenic perturbation occurs on top of an active carbon cycle, with fluxes and stocks represented in the background and taken from Canadell et al. (2021) for all numbers, except for the carbon stocks in coasts, which are from a literature review of coastal marine sediments (Price and Warren, 2016). (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License)
Atmospheric
Projected emissions from coal and oil are above their 2021 levels, with oil being the largest contributor to total emissions growth. The growth in oil emissions can be largely explained by the delayed rebound of international aviation following COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
The 2022 picture among major emitters is mixed: emissions are projected to fall in China (0.9%) and the EU (0.8%), and increase in the USA (1.5%) and India (6%), with a 1.7% rise in the rest of the world combined.
The remaining carbon budget for a 50% likelihood to limit global warming to 1.5°C has reduced to 380 GtCO2 (exceeded after nine years if emissions remain at 2022 levels) and 1230 GtCO2 to limit to 2°C (30 years at 2022 emissions levels).
To reach zero CO2 emissions by 2050 would now require a decrease of about 1.4 GtCO2 each year, comparable to the observed fall in 2020 emissions resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns, highlighting the scale of the action required.
Land and ocean, which absorb and store carbon, continue to take up around half of the CO2 emissions. The ocean and land CO2 sinks are still increasing in response to the atmospheric CO2 increase, although climate change reduced this growth by an estimated 4% (ocean sink) and 17% (land sink) over the 2012-2021 decade.
Meaningful
This year’s carbon budget shows that the long-term rate of increasing fossil emissions has slowed. The average rise peaked at +3% per year during the 2000s, while growth in the last decade has been about +0.5% per year.
The research team – including the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia (UEA), CICERO and Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich – welcomed this slow-down, but said it was “far from the emissions decrease we need”.
The findings come as world leaders meet at COP27 in Egypt to discuss the climate crisis.
We are at a turning point and must not allow world events to distract us from the urgent and sustained need to cut our emissions.
—Professor Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor at UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences
“There are some positive signs, but leaders meeting at COP27 will have to take meaningful action if we are to have any chance of limiting global warming close to 1.5°C. The Global Carbon Budget numbers monitor the progress on climate action and right now we are not seeing the action required.”
“If governments respond by turbocharging clean energy investments and planting, not cutting, trees, global emissions could rapidly start to fall.
“We are at a turning point and must not allow world events to distract us from the urgent and sustained need to cut our emissions to stabilise the global climate and reduce cascading risks.”
Land-use changes, especially deforestation, are a significant source of CO2 emissions (about a tenth of the amount from fossil emissions). Indonesia, Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo contribute 58% of global land-use change emissions.
Transparent
Carbon removal via reforestation or new forests counterbalances half of the deforestation emissions, and the researchers say that stopping deforestation and increasing efforts to restore and expand forests constitutes a large opportunity to reduce emissions and increase removals in forests.
The Global Carbon Budget report projects that atmospheric CO2 concentrations will reach an average of 417.2 parts per million in 2022, more than 50% above pre-industrial levels.
The projection of 40.6 GtCO2 total emissions in 2022 is close to the 40.9 GtCO2 in 2019, which is the highest annual total ever.
The Global Carbon Budget report, produced by an international team of more than 100 scientists, examines both carbon sources and sinks. It provides an annual, peer-reviewed update, building on established methodologies in a fully transparent manner.
The Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders shares an open letter for world leaders at COP27.
Alliance members know that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires significant collaboration and shared responsibility between the private and public sectors.
Knowing this, the CEOs are ready to work side by side with governments to accelerate the transition to net zero.
More than 100 CEOs of large multinational organizations, all members of the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, have strong convictions that our ambitious climate targets can be realized only with the support of governments.
We recognize the positive progress to date. Emissions under current policies are projected to reach 58 GtCO2e in 2030, 2 GtCO2e lower than what it was in 2019, but still 25 GtCO2e higher than what is essential to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This gap is equivalent to the annual emissions of 5.4 billion cars. Unfortunately, assuming full implementation of unconditional NDCs still results in a 23 GtCO2e gap (2019 and 2022 UNEP Emissions Gap Report). Governments must raise their ambitions and enact policy changes to close this gap, otherwise we face a significant threat to the existence of human life and nature.
This letter outlines the actions we believe governments and businesses need to take to unlock the potential of the private sector and to move towards a path that limits global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
We’re in this together to solve the climate crisis
We, the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, are ready to work side-by-side with governments to deliver bold climate action. We encourage all business leaders to set science-based targets to halve global emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 at the latest.
The global impact on food and energy prices, notably due to the war in Ukraine, continues to hurt households, businesses and economies worldwide. The crisis is a stark reminder of the fragile nature of the current energy and food systems, which are still dominated by fossil fuels. Leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) have the chance to make this a historic turning point towards cleaner, more affordable and secure energy and food systems. We, therefore, welcome Egypt’s hosting of COP27 this year and Africa’s leadership on climate action, adaptation, resilience and a just transition.
Accelerating the transition to net zero requires significant collaboration and shared responsibility between the private and public sectors. We believe that business commitments to climate action backed by private sector actions and investments can reinforce the mandate for governments to raise their own ambitions and enable faster progress.Government targets, supporting policies and transition plans can provide clarity, predictability and the competitive landscape to encourage more businesses to take action and to make transition-aligned investments.
As members of the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, we have committed to reducing emissions by more than 1 gigatons annually by 2030 and have, on average, reduced scope 1 and 2 emissions by 22% from 2019-2020 levels, outpacing major nations.*
We call on our peers in the private sector to join us in:
Setting science-based targets in line with the Paris Agreement, with a clear roadmap that takes sector-specific pathways into account.
Collaborating within and across sectors and value chains to drive transparency, advocacy and action in alliances and initiatives while working with major industry and trade associations to advance alignment with the Paris Agreement.
Contributing to the development of internationally harmonized reporting standards.
In this context and with leaders meeting at COP27 and the G20, we call on governments to:
Set bold ambitions and follow through on commitments
Deliver on the promise in the Glasgow Climate Pact and commit to ambitious and Paris Agreement-aligned nationally determined contributions and translate them into plans and policies that at least halve global carbon emissions by 2030 and contribute to global net zero by 2050.
Accelerate the transition
Drive down the green premium of low-carbon technologies for hard-to-abate sectors by unlocking blended finance (concessionary lending, guarantee mechanisms and others), scaling innovative sustainable finance mechanisms, integrating climate and sustainability criteria in public procurement and promoting the alignment of international standards for transformational technologies.
The focus is on action. Recognizing that many solutions already exist, there is an urgent need to:
Break down barriers by simplifying regulations, speeding up permitting processes and creating the enabling policy frameworks to accelerate scaling and deploying these solutions. Essential to progress is increased R&D expenditure and the inclusion of digital and physical infrastructure to ensure supply meets demand.
Provide incentives, including policies for emerging renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies on both the supply and the demand side, while also supporting hard-to-abate sectors through additional funding for innovation and the scaling up of new solutions, including circularity, carbon removal and natural climate solutions.
Put a price on carbon and phase out fossil fuel subsidies in a way that is both just and results in their eventual elimination. Combined, this will improve the competitiveness of sustainable low-carbon technologies.
Invest in reskilling and upskilling of those in the workforce that are impacted by the transition and enable more people to participate in the green economy.
Invest in mitigation, adaptation, and a just transition
Ensure that developed countries meet and exceed their $100 billion commitment and that these funds go directly to supporting developing countries’ efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. This is fundamental to establishing and maintaining confidence between countries to tackle the climate crisis together.
The impacts of climate change are already being felt, from more frequent heatwaves and wildfires to more severe tropical cyclones and floods. These changes disproportionately impact developing countries and threaten current and future economic development, human health and welfare. For new climate adaptation infrastructure projects, governments should strive for a conditionality of sustainability (e.g. building materials and techniques). Investing in water, healthy food systems and resilient supply chains while increasing local production in the Global South using regenerative agriculture and other sustainable farming and food production practices is integral to climate adaptation and resilience.
This must be done while protecting biodiversity and ecosystems and ensuring a fair and inclusive transition for all. This transition needs a radical rethinking of how we do business and a prolonged focus throughout the private and public sectors aligned with bold policy actions to decarbonize the economy.
Internationally harmonize reporting and disclosure standards
With the current divergence of standards underway, we call on the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the European Commission, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and all other regulating bodies to align their collective efforts to arrive at globally-aligned standards to accurately measure and compare progress against ambitious targets. The standards must be interoperable, decision-useful and implementable to ensure they create trust and lasting change. Finally, market-based instruments (including carbon markets, power purchase agreements, etc.) have an essential role to play in reducing carbon emissions globally but need greater alignment and clear standards and frameworks.
This is the decade of action, so we must work side-by-side with governments to scale up public-private efforts in the drive to net zero. Alliance members will be in Egypt during COP27 to discuss with world leaders, government officials and civil society representatives how, together, we can take positive action to tackle the climate crisis.
99. Svein Tore Holsether, President and Chief Executive Officer, Yara International ASA
100. Wolf-Henning Scheider, Chairman of the Board of Management and Chief Executive Officer, ZF Group
101. Mario Greco, Group Chief Executive Officer, Zurich Insurance Group
*Such as Brazil (13% 2019-2020 reduction), USA (11% 2019-2020 reduction), Europe and India (both 8% 19-20 reduction), all taken from the Carbon Monitor Programme, Nature.com analysis.
Original source: World Economic Forum (Public License)
Part personality quiz, part decision tree, part choose-your-own-adventure, a new tool aims to help people find the climate action best suited for them.
The new “Climate Action Quiz,” rolled out through Yale Climate Connections in October 2022, is being used by climate-concerned individuals to help them find the climate action engagement strategy best suited to their lives and passions.
After taking the quiz in a workshop zoomed to Alaska, a group of social-work students decided to link their work to climate justice. A high school teacher decided to teach her accounting students to include the full social, environmental, and climate costs of “business-as-usual” on their balance sheets. A young mother, with her newborn daughter on her shoulder, decided to focus on the rights of future generations. People from across the country have begun to register their climate-action decisions.
These early results are just what the quiz developers had hoped would happen when we created the Climate Action Quiz. Between us, co-author SueEllen Campbell and I estimated we had given or organized at least 250 climate-action events in the past 10 years. Practicallywithout exception, the first audience response often was some variation of: “OK, I’m in! I want to help in the climate struggle. But I simply don’t know what to do.”
We get it. It’s hard. People have lives to live and work to do, and the climatechallenges seem infinite and ferocious. It’s not immediately clear how to do anything that will make a realdifference. But in an all-hands-on-deck emergency like the climate crisis, there’s no place for bystanders. So we decided to develop a tool to help people get started.
From one set of options to another, the quiz leads individuals to their particular place in planet-healing work.
Are you ready to act, or do you need a little encouragement?
Are you happiest when you are working for something or against something?
Do you like to act alone, or are you ready to join with other people?
Does climate injustice concern you most, or environmental devastation?
Once they land on their unique calling — Get involved in land use politics in your area. Raise your kids with climate change in mind. Join local stream restoration efforts. Ratchet up your steps to shrink your own climate footprint — the tool offers people resources and gentle, maybe jolly, suggestions for getting started.
Early responses to the quiz have been heartening. “I did it twice.” “I loved the idea of googling my job + climate. I had never considered that.” “This was informative and inspiring.”
We are beginning to hearalso from educators who are sending their students to the quiz. Teachers recognize that informing students about the dangers they face is necessary, but often disempowering and sometimes cruel. But they say that leading them to meaningful, effective actions – actions they are comfortable taking, on issues they deeply care about – lifts their spirits and gives them reason to engage.
It is too early to draw any conclusions about what actions people are most likely to choose, and that isn’t really our goal. But what is remarkable is the variety of actions people are choosing to take. We are encouraged by this early result. The problems that the world faces are complex and desperately entangled. Soaction in any area can send healing effects in many different directions. Work to create social justice will have spinoff effects on environmental thriving, for example, and the reverse is true. It doesn’t matter where people choose to start, as long as they start somewhere.
Many quiz takers’ choices have led them to No. 5: Shrink your own carbon footprint. Once here, the quiz encourages them to go beyond simply making different choices as consumers. We are aware that too close a focus on a personal footprint invites people to blame themselves for causing the climate crisis; that take in effect distracts their attention from those polluters whofor crucial decades have used deceit, political payoffs, and economic uncertainty to trap them in a fossil-fuel dependent economy.
Just as the problems are innumerable, the expertise and experience of concerned people come in beautiful and infinite variety. Musicians, aunts and uncles, morticians, beauticians, teachers, fieldworkers, grocers, children, and more all have important contributions to make to the climate struggle. It’s a mistake to think that the only option is to march in a parade (although that can befun) or change out your lightbulbs (less fun) when the real healing requires transformations in every aspect of our lives. The quiz is a kind of matchmaking, we tell people. And like matchmaking, it is an expression of the universal desire of people to find meaningful connection to the things they care most about in the world.
Kathleen Dean Moore, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emerita at Oregon State University. She is the author or co-editor of five books about climate ethics, including Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril and Great Tide Rising: Toward Clarity and Moral Courage in a Time of Planetary Change.
