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‘This year we see yet another rise in global fossil CO2 emissions, when we need a rapid decline.’

By Brendan Montague, The Ecologist (Creative Commons 4.0)

Global carbon emissions in 2022 remain at record levels – with no sign of the decrease that is urgently needed to limit warming to 1.5°C, according to the Global Carbon Project science team.

If current emissions levels persist, there is now a 50% chance that global warming of 1.5°C will be exceeded in nine years.

The new report projects total global CO₂ emissions of 40.6 billion tonnes (GtCO₂) in 2022. This is fuelled by fossil CO2 emissions which are projected to rise 1.0% compared to 2021, reaching 36.6 GtCO₂ – slightly above the 2019 pre-COVID-19 levels. Emissions from land-use change, such as deforestation, are projected to be 3.9 GtCO₂ in 2022.

Schematic representation of the global carbon cycle — Global Carbon Budget 2022 — Schematic representation of the overall perturbation of the global carbon cycle caused by anthropogenic activities averaged globally for the decade 2012–2021. See legends for the corresponding arrows and units. The uncertainty in the atmospheric CO2 growth rate is very small (±0.02 GtC yr−1) and is neglected for the figure. The anthropogenic perturbation occurs on top of an active carbon cycle, with fluxes and stocks represented in the background and taken from Canadell et al. (2021) for all numbers, except for the carbon stocks in coasts, which are from a literature review of coastal marine sediments (Price and Warren, 2016). (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License)

Atmospheric

Projected emissions from coal and oil are above their 2021 levels, with oil being the largest contributor to total emissions growth. The growth in oil emissions can be largely explained by the delayed rebound of international aviation following COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

The 2022 picture among major emitters is mixed: emissions are projected to fall in China (0.9%) and the EU (0.8%), and increase in the USA (1.5%) and India (6%), with a 1.7% rise in the rest of the world combined.

The remaining carbon budget for a 50% likelihood to limit global warming to 1.5°C has reduced to 380 GtCO2 (exceeded after nine years if emissions remain at 2022 levels) and 1230 GtCO2 to limit to 2°C (30 years at 2022 emissions levels).

To reach zero CO₂ emissions by 2050 would now require a decrease of about 1.4 GtCO₂ each year, comparable to the observed fall in 2020 emissions resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns, highlighting the scale of the action required.

Land and ocean, which absorb and store carbon, continue to take up around half of the CO₂ emissions. The ocean and land CO₂ sinks are still increasing in response to the atmospheric CO₂ increase, although climate change reduced this growth by an estimated 4% (ocean sink) and 17% (land sink) over the 2012-2021 decade.

Meaningful

This year’s carbon budget shows that the long-term rate of increasing fossil emissions has slowed. The average rise peaked at +3% per year during the 2000s, while growth in the last decade has been about +0.5% per year.

The research team – including the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia (UEA), CICERO and Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich – welcomed this slow-down, but said it was “far from the emissions decrease we need”.

The findings come as world leaders meet at COP27 in Egypt to discuss the climate crisis.

“This year we see yet another rise in global fossil CO2 emissions, when we need a rapid decline,” said Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, who led the study.

We are at a turning point and must not allow world events to distract us from the urgent and sustained need to cut our emissions.
—Professor Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor at UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences

“There are some positive signs, but leaders meeting at COP27 will have to take meaningful action if we are to have any chance of limiting global warming close to 1.5°C. The Global Carbon Budget numbers monitor the progress on climate action and right now we are not seeing the action required.”

Emissions

Professor Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor at UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, said: “Our findings reveal turbulence in emissions patterns this year resulting from the pandemic and global energy crises.

“If governments respond by turbocharging clean energy investments and planting, not cutting, trees, global emissions could rapidly start to fall.

“We are at a turning point and must not allow world events to distract us from the urgent and sustained need to cut our emissions to stabilise the global climate and reduce cascading risks.”

Land-use changes, especially deforestation, are a significant source of CO₂ emissions (about a tenth of the amount from fossil emissions). Indonesia, Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo contribute 58% of global land-use change emissions.

Transparent

Carbon removal via reforestation or new forests counterbalances half of the deforestation emissions, and the researchers say that stopping deforestation and increasing efforts to restore and expand forests constitutes a large opportunity to reduce emissions and increase removals in forests.

The Global Carbon Budget report projects that atmospheric CO₂ concentrations will reach an average of 417.2 parts per million in 2022, more than 50% above pre-industrial levels.

The projection of 40.6 GtCO₂ total emissions in 2022 is close to the 40.9 GtCO₂ in 2019, which is the highest annual total ever.

The Global Carbon Budget report, produced by an international team of more than 100 scientists, examines both carbon sources and sinks. It provides an annual, peer-reviewed update, building on established methodologies in a fully transparent manner.

Transform UK farmland to boost food resilience and tackle nature crisis, says WWF.

By, Brendan Montague, The Ecologist (Creative Commons 4.0)

Half of the UK’s wheat harvest each year – equivalent to 11 billion loaves of bread – is being used to feed livestock in an “inherently inefficient” process that is fuelling climate change, a WWF report reveals.

The report shows the extent of farmland used to grow crops that are being used to feed animals instead of people. It explores the benefits for people, climate and nature of using more of the UK’s arable land to grow crops for human consumption instead, such as addressing the climate and nature crises and boosting the UK’s food resilience.

The latest report in WWF’s Future of Feed series highlights the fact that dairy and meat products provide only 32 percent of calories consumed in the UK and less than half of protein despite livestock and their feed making up 85 percent of the country’s agricultural land use.

Habitats

Growing crops like cereals to feed farm animals accounts for a significant proportion of this land-use footprint, according to the analysis in the report.

Wheat and barley grown to feed farmed animals in the UK using 2 million hectares of land – 40 percent of the UK’s arable land area.

Wheat grown in the UK each year to feed livestock – mostly chickens and pigs – makes up half of our annual wheat harvest and would be enough to produce nearly 11 billion loaves of bread.

Oats grown in the UK to feed livestock each year make up a third of our annual oat harvest and would be enough to produce nearly 6 billion bowls of porridge.

The UK imports large quantities of soy to feed pigs and poultry, fuelling the destruction of precious habitats overseas, like the Brazilian Cerrado.

Affordable

Replacing animal feeds like soy and cereal with alternatives like grass, by-products from the food supply chain, and innovative feed ingredients such as insect meal, would free up land to grow food for people, including high-value crops like fruits, vegetables, and nuts, and could be at the heart of a transition to nature-friendly regenerative agriculture.

The report recognises that this approach to feeding farm animals would necessitate a reduction in the overall numbers of livestock in the UK.

Kate Norgrove, executive director of advocacy and campaigns at WWF said: “We can’t afford to stay locked into a food system that’s not fit for purpose, with food prices soaring.

“Far too much of the food we eat is produced in ways that are fuelling the climate crisis and driving catastrophic nature loss, yet failing to deliver affordable, healthy food for all.

Biodiversity

“To make our food system truly shock-resistant we need to accelerate a shift to sustainable production, including rethinking the way we are using huge quantities of the UK’s most productive land to grow food for livestock instead of people.

She added: “UK governments can future-proof our food and bring huge benefits for nature and climate at the same time by ramping up support for farmers to transform our landscapes, making space for nature in farms and forests, fields and fens.”

Focusing purely on the carbon footprint of food production risks fuelling agricultural intensification and masking other negative environmental impacts, like pollution from the slurry or land conversion for feed production in chicken farming, which can have a low carbon footprint in comparison with pasture-fed beef, the report states.

It also highlights the importance of looking at a wider range of measures to evaluate the environmental impact of all aspects of food production, taking account of pressures on land, water, and biodiversity before drawing conclusions.

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Fossil fuel emissions still increasing