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Countries promised to move away from coal, oil and natural gas at last year’s climate summit. New research shows they’re burning more than ever before.
By Brad Plumer
Reporting from the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan
Published Nov. 12, 2024Updated Nov. 13, 2024, 2:33 a.m. ET
One year after world leaders made a splashy promise to shift away from fossil fuels, countries are burning more oil, natural gas and coal than ever before, researchers said this week.
Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are on track to reach a record 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024, a 0.8 percent increase over 2023 levels, according to new data from the Global Carbon Project. It’s a trend that puts countries farther from their goal of stopping global warming.
The increase was not uniform across the globe. Emissions will most likely decline this year in the United States and Europe, and fossil fuel use in China slowed. Yet that was offset by a surge in carbon dioxide from India and the rest of the world.
The findings were made public early on Wednesday at the United Nations climate change summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where diplomats and world leaders have gathered to discuss how to raise trillions of dollars to cope with rising global temperatures. Those talks have already been jolted by the election of Donald J. Trump and the expectation that the United States will soon retreat from the fight against global warming.
Some experts had previously suggested that global emissions could peak sometime this decade because of the rapid spread of solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles. But so far, those technologies have only partly satisfied the world’s steadily growing demand for energy. That means countries have kept burning more oil, coal and gas to fill the gap.
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