The new report will come as bad news at the 13-day COP26 meeting, where a diplomatic spat saw the United States accuse China and Russia of failing to step up their climate action ambitions.Ĭhina on its own will account for 31 percent of global emissions this year after its economy accelerated out of the economic lull ahead of others.Ĭarbon pollution from oil remains well below 2019 levels, but could surge as the transport and aviation sectors recover from pandemic disruption, said the study in the journal Earth System Science Data.
"It shows what's happening in the real world while we are here in Glasgow talking about tackling climate change."
"This report is a reality check," co-author Corrine Le Querre, a professor of climate change science at Britain's University of East Anglia, told AFP. Overall, CO2 pollution this year will be just shy of the record set in 2019, according to the annual report from the Global Carbon Project consortium, released as nearly 200 nations at the COP26 climate summit confront the threat of catastrophic warming.Įmissions from gas and highly polluting coal will rise this year by more than they dropped in 2020 due to the pandemic-driven economic slowdown.Ĭapping the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels - as per the Paris Agreement - would limit mortality and damage, but requires slashing carbon emissions nearly in half by 2030 and to net zero by 2050, the UN's climate science authority has warned.
Global CO2 emissions caused mainly by burning fossil fuels are set to rebound in 2021 to pre-Covid levels, with China's share increasing to nearly a third of the total, according to an assessment published Thursday.