Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas continue to rise. They are expected to reach a peak of 36.8 billion tons per year in 2023, as experts write in the report on the global carbon budget. This is 1.1% more than in 2022 and 1.4% more than in the pre-Corona year 2019.
“The impacts of climate change are evident all around us, but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow,” said research leader Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom in a statement. More than 120 experts were involved in the report, published today in the journal Earth System Science Data.
“Exceeding the 1.5 degree target is inevitable”
The proportion of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air will average 419.3 ppm (parts per million) in 2023, which is 51 percent higher than in 1750. “It seems inevitable that we will “Exceed the 5 degree target – and the last few years have shown us dramatically how serious the consequences of climate change already are,” said Julia Pongratz of Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, one of the report’s lead authors. However, every tenth of a degree counts in the fight against the climate crisis.