Global carbon emissions are rising under the Paris climate agreement
Planet-warming pollution is expected to increase 9 percent by the end of the decade under the current climate plans of nearly 200 countries, raising alarm among United Nations leaders two weeks before the start of international climate talks.
The grim assessment was released Tuesday in a report by the U.N. climate change secretariat that highlighted the shortcomings of global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists previously have said carbon emissions must fall 43 percent by 2030 over 2019 levels to prevent temperatures from increasing more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.