[D66] Greenhouse gas emissions at 'all-time high' causing unprecedented rate of global warming, warn scientists

[René Oudeweg]

phys.org 
<https://phys.org/news/2023-06-greenhouse-gas-emissions-all-time-high.html>


  Greenhouse gas emissions at 'all-time high' causing unprecedented rate
  of global warming, warn scientists

Science X
June 8, 2023
8–10 minutes
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climate change Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Human-caused global warming has continued to increase at an 
"unprecedented rate" since the last major assessment of the climate 
system published two years ago, say 50 leading scientists.

One of the researchers said the analysis was a "timely wake-up call" 
that the pace and scale of climate action has been insufficient, and it 
comes as climate experts <https://phys.org/tags/climate+experts/> meet 
in Bonn to prepare the ground for the major COP28 climate conference in 
the UAE in December, which will include a stocktake of progress towards 
keeping global warming <https://phys.org/tags/global+warming/> to 1.5°C 
by 2050.

Given the speed at which the global climate system 
<https://phys.org/tags/global+climate+system/> is changing, the 
scientists argue that policymakers, climate negotiators and civil 
society groups <https://phys.org/tags/civil+society+groups/> need to 
have access to up-to-date and robust scientific evidence on which to 
base decisions.

The authoritative source of scientific information on the state of the 
climate is the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) but 
the turnaround time for its major assessments is five or ten years, and 
that creates an "information gap," particularly when climate indicators 
are changing rapidly.

In an initiative being led by the University of Leeds, the scientists 
have developed an open data <https://phys.org/tags/open+data/>, open 
science platform—the Indicators of Global Climate Change 
<https://climatechangetracker.org/igcc> and website 
(https://igcc.earth/). It will update information on key climate 
indicators every year.


    Critical decade for climate change

The Indicators of Global Climate Change Project is being coordinated by 
Professor Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate 
Futures at Leeds. He said, "This is the critical decade for climate 
change. Decisions made now will have an impact on how much temperatures 
will rise and the degree and severity of impacts we will see as a result.

"Long-term warming rates are currently at a long-term high, caused by 
highest-ever levels of greenhouse gas emissions 
<https://phys.org/tags/greenhouse+gas+emissions/>. But there is evidence 
that the rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions has slowed.

"We need to be nimble footed in the face of climate change. We need to 
change policy and approaches in the light of the latest evidence about 
the state of the climate system. Time is no longer on our side. Access 
to up-to-date information is vitally important."

Writing in the journal /Earth System Science Data/, the scientists have 
revealed how key indicators have changed since the publication of the 
IPCC's Sixth Assessment Working Group 1 report in 2021, which produced 
the key data that fed into the subsequent IPCC Sixth Synthesis Report.


    What the updated indicators show

  * Human-induced warming, largely caused by the burning of fossil
    fuels, reached an average of 1.14°C for the most recent decade (2013
    to 2022) above pre-industrial levels. This is up from 1.07°C between
    2010 and 2019.
  * Human-induced warming is now increasing at a pace of over 0.2°C per
    decade.
  * The analysis also found that greenhouse gas emissions were "at an
    all-time high," with human activity resulting in the equivalent of
    54 (+/-5.3) gigatons (or billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide
    being released into the atmosphere on average every year over the
    last decade (2012-2021).
  * There has been positive move away from burning coal, yet this has
    come at a short-term cost in that it has added to global warming by
    reducing particulate pollution in the air, which has a cooling effect.


    'Indicators critical to address climate crisis'

Professor Maisa Rojas Corradi, Minister of the Environment in Chile, 
IPCC author and a scientist involved in this study, said, "An annual 
update of key indicators of global change is critical in helping the 
international community and countries to keep the urgency of addressing 
the climate crisis at the top of the agenda and for evidence-based 
decision-making.

"In line with the 'ratchet-mechanism' of increasing ambition envisioned 
by the Paris Agreement we need scientific information about emissions, 
concentration, and temperature as often as possible to keep 
international climate negotiations up to date and to be able to adjust 
and if necessary correct national policies. In the case of Chile, we 
have a climate change <https://phys.org/tags/climate+change/> law that 
aims at aligning government-wide policies with climate action."


    Remaining carbon budget

One of the major findings of the analysis is the rate of decline in what 
is known as the remaining carbon budget, an estimate of how much carbon 
that can be released into the atmosphere to give a 50% chance of keeping 
global temperature rise within 1.5°C.

In 2020, the IPCC calculated the remaining carbon budget was around 500 
gigatons of carbon dioxide. By the start of 2023, the figure was roughly 
half that at around 250 gigatons of carbon dioxide 
<https://phys.org/tags/carbon+dioxide/>.

The reduction in the estimated remaining carbon budget is due to a 
combination of continued emissions since 2020 and updated estimates of 
human-induced warming.

Professor Forster said, "Even though we are not yet at 1.5°C warming, 
the carbon budget will likely be exhausted in only a few years as we 
have a triple whammy of heating from very high CO_2 emissions, heating 
from increases in other GHG emissions and heating from reductions in 
pollution.

"If we don't want to see the 1.5°C goal disappearing in our rearview 
mirror, the world must work much harder and urgently at bringing 
emissions down. Our aim is for this project to help the key players 
urgently make that important work happen with up-to-date and timely data 
at their fingertips."

Dr. Valérie Masson-Delmotte, from the Université Paris Saclay who 
co-chaired Working Group 1 of the IPCC's Sixth Assessment report and was 
involved in the climate indicators project, said, "This robust update 
shows intensifying heating of our climate driven by human activities. It 
is a timely wake up call for the 2023 global stocktake of the Paris 
Agreement—the pace and scale of climate action is not sufficient to 
limit the escalation of climate-related risks."

As recent IPCC reports have conclusively shown, with every further 
increment of global warming, that the frequency and intensity of climate 
extremes—including hot extremes, heavy rainfall and agricultural 
droughts—increases.

The Indicators of Global Climate Change will have annually updated 
information on greenhouse gas emissions, human-induced global warming 
and the remaining carbon budget.

The website extends a successful climate dashboard called the Climate 
Change Tracker, which was created by software developers who took ideas 
from the finance industry on how to present complex information to the 
public.

*More information:* Piers M. Forster et al, Indicators of Global Climate 
Change 2022: annual update of large-scale indicators of the state of the 
climate system and human influence, /Earth System Science Data/ (2023). 
DOI: 10.5194/essd-15-2295-2023 
<https://dx.doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2295-2023>

*Citation*: Greenhouse gas emissions at 'all-time high' causing 
unprecedented rate of global warming, warn scientists (2023, June 8) 
retrieved 8 June 2023 from 
https://phys.org/news/2023-06-greenhouse-gas-emissions-all-time-high.html

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