CO2 emissions reach a new record of 40 billions in 2014
The Global Summit of UN Organization for Climat Changes will be hold this week in New York with 196 states’ chairmen, finance, companies and civil society representatives. The UN General Secretary, Ban Ki-Moon, declared about this summit that «acting on climat changes became emergent».
In this context, some observations on the state of global carbon balance must be noticed. Actually, we are living in new geological era named by scientists as "Anthropocene”. Indeed, the "Anthropocene” is a word stated by the eminent scientist and Nobel Prized in Chemistry, Pr.Paul Crutzen of the prestigious Deutsch institute Max-Planck of Chemistry, to indicate a new geological period where the influence of human activities or anthropogenic Earth system is predominant.
For 2013, the human impact on environment is marked by an increase on CO2 emissions of 2,3% corresponding to 36 billion tons. The analyse of these results shows an increase of 61% compared to 1990, the year of signature of Kyoto Protocol ; the combustion of fossil fuels and cement production are the main sources of emissions.
According to the study published by Pr.Pierre Friedlingstein in the prestigious revue «Nature Geoscience [1], in the 21st, September 2014 number, the expectations on CO2 emissions for 2014, a rise of 2,5%, should reach a new record of 40 billion tons, a record never made since 1870. In 2013, China was the most planet polluter with 28% of the global CO2 emissions. Followed by USA (14%), European Union ( 10% with 28 state memebers) and India (7%), 58% all combined.
The rate of growth of emissions in these countries, between 2012 and 2013, was 4,2% for China, 2,9% for the USA, 1,8% for the EU and finally 5,1% for India. In 2013, the global CO2 emisions per person and per year was 5,1 tons: 16,4 tons in the USA, 7,2 tons in China, 6,8 tons in the EU and 1,9 tons in India.
The annual growth rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration of 2.54 parts per million (ppm) corresponding to 19.8 billion tons of CO2 was significant in 2013 and more than the average of 15.8 billion tons of CO2 per year. It reflects, on one hand, the increase in the emission generated by fossil fuels, and secondly, a low CO2 sequestration in the ocean and compared to the previous decade ground. The ocean and soil removed only 27% and 23% of the total emission, 5O% of CO2 emissions were kept in the atmosphere. Global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 395 ppm in 2013 and is 43% above the registered concentration in the beginning of the industrial revolution (about 277 ppm in 1750) . The actual concentration of CO2 is the highest in at least 800 000 years. It is important to note that measuring the amount of accumulation of atmospheric CO2 is the most accurate in the global carbon balance.
Faced with this breakneck pace of emissions of carbon dioxide, and to be able to keep the average global temperature increase to a level below 2 ° C, drastic measures to reduce carbon emissions must be taken. The objectives of the summit in New York have been clearly defined by the General Secretary of the UN, "a universal and meaningful climate agreement next year in Paris" and the adoption of "ambitious measures to reduce the level of greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen the resilience”.
CDER is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of one of its main projects (International Global Atmospheric Chemistry, IGAC).
Pr. Noureddine Yassaa, CDER Director. Reference : [1] P. Friedlingstein et al., Persistent growth of CO2 emissions and implications for reaching climate targets, Nature Geoscience, (2014), doi:10.1038/ngeo2248.
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