New Research Predicts 2014 CO2 Emissions In Excess Of 40 Billion Tons

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Carbon dioxide emissions, which are one of the main contributors to global warming, are expected to reach a record high of 40 billion tons in 2014, according to new Global Carbon Project (GCP) data released this weekend.
The GCP, which is co-led in the UK by researchers from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences at the University of Exeter, said that those figures reflect a projected 2.5 percent increase in the burning of fossil fuels.
Based on these new statistics, future CO2 emissions cannot exceed 1,200 billion tons for a likely 66 percent chance of keeping average global warming under 2 degrees Celsius, the researchers said. At the current rate of emissions, this maximum carbon dioxide quota would be used up in approximately three decades time, meaning that there is just one generation before the 2 degree Celsius limit could be exceeded.
In order to avoid this, climate scientists warn that more than half of all remaining fossil fuel reserve may need to be left unused. The GCP’s Global Carbon Budget report was released just two days before the start of the 2014 UN Climate Summit in New York, where world leaders will meet in an attempt to catalyze climate change, reduce emissions and work towards a new global agreement in 2015.
“The human influence on climate change is clear,” Tyndall Centre director Corinne Le Quéré said in a statement on Sunday. “Politicians meeting in New York need to think very carefully about their diminishing choices exposed by climate science.”
“We need substantial and sustained reductions in CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels if we are to limit global climate change,” she added. “We are nowhere near the commitments necessary to stay below 2°C of climate change, a level that will be already challenging to manage for most countries around the world, even for rich nations.”
The Global Carbon Budget, which included figures for 2013 as well as projections for 2014, found that China, the USA, the EU and India are the largest emitters, accounting for a combined 58 percent of all global emissions. China’s carbon emissions increased by 4.2 percent in 2013, while the USA’s grew by 2.9 percent and India’s by 5.1 percent.
The EU, on the other hand, decreased total emissions by 1.8 percent – although it continues to export a third of its emissions to China and other producers through imported goods and services, according to the GCP. For the first time, China’s per-capita emissions overtook those in the EU in 2013, and the Asian nation’s CO2 emissions are now larger than both the US and the EU combined, according to the report.
Furthermore, the statistics found that CO2 emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels are 65 percent above 1990 levels. The findings served as the basis of a series of research papers appearing in the journals Nature Climate Change, Nature Geoscience and Earth System Science Data Discussions (ESSD).
“The time for a quiet evolution in our attitudes towards climate change is now over. Delaying action is not an option – we need to act together, and act quickly, if we are to stand a chance of avoiding climate change not long into the future, but within many of our own lifetimes,” said University of Exeter professor Pierre Friedlingstein, lead author of the Nature Geoscience paper.
“We have already used two-thirds of the total amount of carbon we can burn, in order to keep warming below the crucial 2°C level. If we carry on at the current rate we will reach our limit in as little as 30 years’ time – and that is without any continued growth in emission levels,” he added. “The implication of no immediate action is worryingly clear – either we take a collective responsibility to make a difference, and soon, or it will be too late.”