Global Carbon Emissions From Fossil Fuels Reached Record Levels In 2023

Experts said that global carbon emissions from fossil fuels reached record levels in 2023.

The annual Global Carbon Budget projected fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 36.8 billion tons in 2023, which is an increase of 1.1% from 2022.

Fossil Emissions

Experts said that fossil CO2 emissions are falling in some regions, including Europe and the USA, but it was observed to be rising overall, with scientists saying that the global action to cut fossil fuels is not happening fast enough to prevent dangerous climate change.

They said that emissions from land-use change, such as deforestation, are projected to decrease slightly but are still too high to be offset by current levels of reforestation and afforestation or the new forests.

The report projected that total global CO2 emissions, which is the fossil plus land use change, would be 40.9 billion tons in 2023.

This is about the same as 2022 levels, and part of a 10-year "plateau" - far from the steep reduction in emissions that is urgently needed to meet global climate targets.

The research team of the report included the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia (UEA), CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich and 90 other institutions around the world.

According to experts, the impacts of climate change are evident all around us, but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow.

Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, lead author of the study, said: "It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2°C target alive."

Meanwhile, the study also determined for how long until we cross 1.5°C of global warming.

The study also estimated the remaining carbon budget before the 1.5°C target is breached consistently over multiple years, not just for a single year.

At the current emissions level, the Global Carbon Budget team estimated a 50% chance that the global warming would exceed 1.5°C consistently in about seven years.

This estimate is subject to large uncertainties, primarily due to the uncertainty on the additional warming coming from non-CO2 agents, especially for the 1.5°C targets which is getting close to the current warming level.

However, it is still clear that the remaining carbon budget - and therefore the time left to meet the 1.5°C target and avoid the worse impacts of climate change - is running out fast.

Other Findings

Other key findings from the 2023 Global Carbon Budget include the following:

- Regional trends vary dramatically. Emissions in 2023 are projected to increase in India (8.2%) and China (4.0%), and decline in the EU (-7.4%), the USA (-3.0%) and the rest of the world (-0.4%).

- Global emissions from coal (1.1%), oil (1.5%) and gas (0.5%) are all projected to increase.

- Atmospheric CO2 levels are projected to average 419.3 parts per million in 2023, 51% above pre-industrial levels.

- About half of all CO2 emitted continues to be absorbed by land and ocean "sinks,'' with the rest remaining in the atmosphere where it causes climate change.

- Global CO2 emissions from fires in 2023 have been larger than the average (based on satellite records since 2003) due to an extreme wildfire season in Canada, where emissions were six to eight times higher than average.

- Current levels of technology-based Carbon Dioxide Removal (ie excluding nature-based means such as reforestation) amount to about 0.01 million tonnes CO2, more than a million times smaller than current fossil CO2 emissions.