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The world has only six years left before it exhausts the carbon budget for a 50 per cent chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the 2024 Global Carbon Budget report by the Global Carbon Project.
The remaining carbon budgets for limiting warming to 1.7°C and 2°C are projected to be depleted within the next 14 and 27 years, respectively, if carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions continue at current levels, the report warns. In 2024, CO₂ emissions are expected to be 52 per cent higher than pre-industrial levels.
A carbon budget represents the total net amount of CO₂ that can be released into the atmosphere while keeping global warming within a target threshold of 1.5°C or 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
In 2024, preliminary estimates indicated that total anthropogenic emissions from fossil fuels and land use, land-use change and forestry will reach 11.3 gigatonnes of carbon per year (GtC yr⁻¹).
CO₂ emissions hit a record high in 2024, with fossil fuel CO₂ emissions expected to increase by 0.8 per cent from 2023 levels to reach 10.2 GtC yr⁻¹. Emissions from coal, oil and gas in 2024 are projected to rise by 0.2 per cent, 0.9 per cent and 2.4 per cent, respectively, compared to 2023.
“All fossil fuels increased in 2024. It is not exactly the direction we are supposed to be heading towards. Gas emissions showed the highest growth rates this year,” Mike O’Sullivan from the University of Exeter, said at a press conference at 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Fossil emissions from the United States and Europe are expected to decrease by 0.6 per cent and 3.8 per cent, bringing 2024 emissions to 1.3 GtC yr-1 and 0.7 GtC yr-1. This is still higher or comparable to projections for India’s emissions at 0.9 GtC yr-1.
Another major component in the carbon budget is emissions from land-use change (such as deforestation). The analysis projects that this could rise to 1 GtC in 2024.
Although global emissions from land-use changes have shown a declining trend with a 20 per cent decrease over the past decade, 2024 could be an outlier, with projected emissions slightly above 2023 levels. O’Sullivan attributed this increase to El Niño, the warm phase of a natural climate pattern across the tropical Pacific, but he noted that the trend is likely to decline again next year.
Three countries — Brazil, Indonesia and Democratic Republic of the Congo — account for more than 50 per cent of global net land-use emissions. “A lot of deforestation and land use change is driven by demand for commodities in the Northern Hemisphere countries like Europe, US and China,” O’Sullivan explained at the press conference.
The main driver is emissions from deforestation, which still remain high at around 1.7 GtC yr-1 over the last 10 years. Carbon captured due to afforestation, reforestation and forestry offset two-thirds of the deforestation emissions, the paper highlighted.
Global fire CO₂ emissions for 2024 have been 11-32 per cent higher than the 2014-2023 average, largely due to high fire activity across North and South America.
The two major carbon sinks — land and oceans — absorb more carbon than they release. The ocean CO₂ sink has remained stagnant since 2016 but is projected to show a slight increase to 3 GtC yr⁻¹ in 2024 due to prevailing El Niño and neutral conditions, while the land sink remains consistent with the decadal average, the paper said.
Technological tools that remove CO₂ emissions currently account for about one-millionth of fossil fuel emissions.
“The impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly dramatic, yet we still see no sign that burning of fossil fuels has peaked,” Pierre Friedlingstein of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, who led the study, said in a statement. “Time is running out to meet the Paris Agreement goals – and world leaders meeting at COP29 must bring about rapid and deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions to give us a chance of staying well below 2°C warming above pre-industrial levels.”
At COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner.