Carbon emissions ‘to hit all-time high’

Paris – Carbon emissions are set to hit an all-time high by 2023 as just two percent of pandemic recovery finance is being spent on clean energy, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said yesterday.

Countries have allocated more than $16 trillion (about R232 trillion) in fiscal support throughout the pandemic to help workers and businesses. The IEA’s Sustainable Recovery Tracker found that just $380 billion of this had been provided for clean energy projects.

If all spending plans were to be realised, the intergovernmental body said, global carbon emissions would hit record levels in 2023 and continue to rise in the following years.

Overall, carbon pollution would be 3.5 billion tons higher than a scenario in which economies are compliant with the 1.5ºC temperature goal of the Paris climate deal, it said. “Since the Covid crisis erupted, many governments may have talked about the importance of building back better for a cleaner future, but many of them are yet to put their money where their mouth is,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol.

The United Nations says that to keep the 1.5ºC temperature goal in play, emissions must on average fall more than seven percent annually through to 2030.

Although lockdowns and travel restrictions saw carbon pollution fall briefly last year, concentrations of planet-warming gases in earth’s atmosphere are still on the rise. With record-breaking heatwaves battering North America and parts of northern Europe submerged in unprecedented flooding, the impacts of climate change are hitting even developed economies harder. –