Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cause heat to be trapped in the atmosphere which is warming the globe and driving climate change. Emissions include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) and (commonly measured through what is known as carbon dioxide equivalents or CO2e).
The impacts of GHGs are being felt here and now. We have observed a steady stream of record breaking warming and 2020 is expected to set another heat record. Last month was the hottest November on record. Month after month, year after year, and decade after decade we are setting new temperature records. This heat is intensifying wildfires, droughts, storms and ice melt.
The timely reductions of these emissions is urgently required to manage the crisis. GHGs are caused directly and indirectly by human activity especially energy (73%). Other sources of GHGs are agriculture, forestry and land use (18%), waste (3%) and industry (5%).
According to a 2019 study there is currently more CO2 in the atmosphere than there has been in at least 3 million years. This study corroborates other more recent studies which show that we are headed headlong towards catastrophe. There are now more than 410 parts per million, or more than twice the levels that would exist without humans. According to a recent UN Intergovernmental Panel on climate change (IPCC), global emissions will need to be reduced by half by 2030 if we are to keep temperatures from rising beyond acceptable limits (1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit as agreed to in the Paris Climate Accord).
These concerns are reiterated and amplified in the 2020 Emissions Gap Report. This annual report looks at where we are compared to where we need to be in terms of GHGs (see previous reports 2012, 2018 and 2019). It specifically predicts where the current trajectory will take us by 2030 and compares this to where we need to be to stay within prescribed temperature limits. The 2020 forecast suggests we are on track to exceed these limits by a considerable margin.
Fossil fuel use is a major contributor of GHGs and coal powered power plants in particular are incompatible with emissions reductions. Efforts to manage emissions demand that we see major reductions in our use of fossil fuels. A 2019 study by the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed that global energy demand grew 2.3 percent in 2018 with fossil fuels accounting for almost 70 percent of growing demand for electricity. In 2019, total greenhouse gas emissions reached a new high of 59.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e). Emissions have grown by an average 1.4 percent per year since 2010, but in 2019 they grew by 2.6 percent. Coal powered plants exceeded 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide for the first time in 2019 contributing to a surge in GHGs from energy that pumped 33.1 billion tons of CO2e in 2018. To have a shot of keeping temperatures within acceptable limits coal use will need to be slashed by more than 78 percent in the next decade.
Rising levels of GHGs have been described as "very worrisome" by Michael Mehling, deputy director of the Center for Energy and Environment Policy Research at MIT. "To me, all this reflects the fact that climate policies around the globe, despite some limited pockets of progress, remain woefully inadequate," Mehling said. Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University succinctly stated,"We are in deep trouble," adding, "The climate consequences are catastrophic. I don't use any word like that very often. But we are headed for disaster, and nobody seems to be able to slow things down."
These observations add to the plethora of research that warns us that if we do not act we will augur the collapse of civilization. Any hope of keeping temperatures from breaching the upper temperature threshold limits will require consorted actions from governments, businesses and individuals.
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