WORLD CARBON EMISSIONS ON THE RISE AGAIN; SCIENTISTS WARN TIME RUNNING OUT

BONN— Carbon dioxide emissions are set to rise this year after a three-year pause, scientists said at UN climate talks on Monday, warning that “time is running out,” even as White House officials used the occasion to champion the fossil fuels that drive global warming.

CO2 emissions, flat since 2014, were forecast to rise 2 percent in 2017, dashing hopes they had peaked, scientists reported at 12-day negotiations in the German city of Bonn ending on Friday.

“The news that emissions are rising after a three-year hiatus is a giant leap backward for humankind,” said Amy Luers, a climate policy advisor to Barack Obama and executive director of Future Earth, which cosponsored the research.

Global CO2 emissions for 2017 were estimated at a record 41 billion tons.

“Time is running out on our ability to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius, let alone 1.5 C,” said lead author Corinne Le Quere, director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia.

The 196-nation Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, calls for capping global warming at 2 C below preindustrial levels.

Deadly heatwaves

With the planet out of kilter after only one degree of warming enough to amplify deadly heat waves, droughts and superstorms, the treaty also vows to explore the feasibility of holding the line at 1.5 C.

“As each year ticks by, the chances of avoiding 2 C of warming continue to diminish,” said coauthor Glen Peters, research director at Center for In- ternational Climate Research in Oslo, Norway.

“Given that 2 C is extremely unlikely based on current progress, then 1.5 C is a distant dream,” he told Agence FrancePresse (AFP).

The study identified China as the single largest cause of resurgent fossil fuel emissions in 2017, with the country’s coal, oil and natural gas use up 3, 5 and 12 percent, respectively.

Earth is overheating due to the burning of oil, gas and especially coal to power the global economy.

That did not discourage US officials from the administration of President Donald Trump from making a case at the UN negotiations for “The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation.”

Fossil fuels

“Without a question, fossil fuels will continue to be used,” George David Banks, a special energy and environment assistant to the US president told a standing-room-only audience, citing projections from the International Energy Agency.

Faced with this reality, “we would argue that it’s in the global interest to make sure that when fossil fuels are used, that it’s as clean and efficient as possible.”

More than 15,000 scientists meanwhile warned that carbon emissions, human population growth, and consumption-driven lifestyles were poisoning the planet and depleting its resources.

“We are jeopardizing our future,” they wrote in a comment entitled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice,” echoing a similar open letter from 1992.—