Greenhouse gases ‘set to stall or even fall’ this year, new study finds

GLOBAL carbon dioxide emissions are set to stall or even fall slightly in 2015 – despite economic growth, a study has revealed.

The rise in climate changecausing emissions has stuttered in the past two years, largely due to a drop in coal consumption by the world’s biggest polluter, China, as well as more renewables and lower growth in demand for oil and gas.

Last year, emissions grew by just 0.6%, after a decade of annual increases averaging around 2.4% a year. And they are thought to have fallen by around 0.6% in 2015, according to the study by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Global Carbon Project published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The stalling of output of the major greenhouse gas is significant because it comes despite growth of more than 3% in both years – marking a change from previous drops in global emissions that occurred following contractions in the economy such as the 2008 downturn.

But the figures, announced as countries meet in Paris for crucial “COP21” UN talks on preventing dangerous global temperature rises of more than 20C, do not necessarily mean the world has reached a needed peak and downward trend in emissions.

Experts warn that global emissions must come down to zero in order to stabilise the climate – as continuing to pump out carbon into the atmosphere would cause continued temperature rises over the long term.

Professor Corinne Le Quere, director of the Tyndall Centre at UEA who led the data analysis, said it was “unlikely” that emissions had peaked for good because developing countries still relied primarily on coal to meet their energy needs and cuts in pollution in some rich countries were still “modest at best”.

But she said: “These figures are certainly not typical of the growth trajectory seen since 2000 – where the annual growth in emissions was between 2% and 3%. What we are now seeing is that emissions appear to have stalled, and they could even decline slightly in 2015.”

The world is still emitting 36 billion tonnes a year of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industry alone, she said, warning: “There is a long way to near-zero emissions.”