Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are set to hit a record high this year, exacerbating climate change and fuelling more destructive extreme weather, scientists said.
A new report published at the COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai says global carbon emissions from fossil fuels rose again in 2023 and there is a 50% chance that global warming will exceed the critical 1.5 degree Celsius level in about seven years.
But while the report, published by the Global Carbon Capture Project, shows emissions from burning fossil rose by 1.1%%, it also notes a modest reduction in emissions from land use, which includes de-forestation.
Taking both sources of greenhouse gases together, the research shows estimates total global CO2 emissions this year will amount to 40.9 billion tonnes, broadly unchanged from last year.
The new research shows that fossil CO2 emissions are falling in some regions, including Europe and the USA, but going up overall.
This is because emissions from the largest and third largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and India, are continuing to rise by 4% and 8.2% respectively.
When land use emissions are included, global CO2 emissions are set to total 40.9 billion tons this year.
Emissions from coal, oil and gas all rose, driven by India and China. The Chinese rise was caused by its economy reopening after Covid-19 lockdowns, while India's was a result of power demand growing faster than the country's renewable energy capacity, leaving fossil fuels to make up the shortfall.
The year's emissions trajectory pulls the world further away from preventing global warming exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.
"It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement," said Exeter's Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, who led the research.
Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep warming well below 2C and to aim for 1.5C.
Scientists have said more than 1.5C will unleash more severe and irreversible impacts including fatal heat, catastrophic floods, and the death of coral reefs.
"Leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2C target alive," Prof Friedlingstein said.
The IPCC, the UN's climate science panel, has said world emissions must plummet 43% by 2030, to stick to the 1.5C limit.
Instead, emissions have charged higher in recent years. The Covid-19 pandemic caused a brief blip in that trend, but emissions are now back up to 1.4% above pre-Covid levels.
Researchers from the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said last month China's greenhouse emissions could start going into "structural decline" as early as next year due to record-high renewable energy installations.
China produces 31% of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions.
The new report cited some bright spots, with emissions in the US and European Union both falling, driven in part by coal plants being retired.
Overall, 26 countries representing 28% of the world's emissions are now in a downward trend. Most are in Europe, the researchers said.
Additional reporting Reuters
The seriousness of what is going on at COP28 was driven home by a new report from the World Meteorological Organization, confirming that the rate and impact of climate change surged alarmingly during the last decade.
It was the hottest decade on record, averaging 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels as greenhouse gases surged.
Very worrying, however, was the evidence that the rate of growth of methane in the atmosphere, a gas that is 80 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, has doubled.
But even more alarming, according to the World Meteorological Organization, is what is happening to glaciers on land.
The report says that glaciers are disappearing at a fast pace, losing an average of 1 metre thickness per year throughout the decade.
The WMO said that the glaciers were the water table of the world, and that their disappearance would have a very considerable impact for all communities downstream, and also eventually for the rise in global sea level levels.
Premature temperature-related deaths
A separate study highlighted by Greenpeace revealed that the number of premature temperature-related deaths, resulting from the global warming caused by the emissions of just nine fossil fuel companies alone, would amount to hundreds of thousands of lives before the end of this century.
Meanwhile, suspicion about the role of fossil fuel organisations behind the scenes at the COP28 talks continues to grow, after analysis was published showing that 2,456 people affiliated with the oil and gas industry were registered to attend the venue.
This is four times more than last year at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, leading some activists to complain that the oil industry should not be writing the rules about climate.
