Carbon emissions from fossil fuels, the single biggest contributor to global warming, are set to reach a record high in 2024, “with no peak or downward trajectory currently in sight”, according to the latest assessment presented at the Cop29 climate talks.
This means the world is likely to overshoot the critical 1.5-degree target in the Paris Agreement in less than 10 years, according to climate scientists from 90 research institutions. That aim to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 2-degrees Celsius – and if possible to 1.5-degrees – above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century was agreed by almost 200 countries in 2015 to prevent potentially irreversible effects of climate change.
The annual Global Carbon Budget, published on Wednesday, tracks trends in emissions and “sinks” storing greenhouse gas. It is a key measure of progress towards Paris goals, and a main agenda item at UN climate negotiations.
Overshooting targets means extreme and more costly measures will inevitably be required later, whereas scientists say steady emission reductions are critical to the world staying within safe limits.
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Ireland’s carbon budgets entail legally-enforced limits on carbon emitted across sectors of the economy over five-year periods. Based on current emissions they are likely to be exceeded up to 2030.
Research published this week by UCC energy analysts indicates that meeting ambitious Irish carbon budgets would cost between €600 million and €1.4 billion annually between 2024 and 2050, depending on the country’s level of ambition. If Ireland pursues the most ambitious climate budget it would cost only “the equivalent of five cups of coffee a month for every person in Ireland” – less than 0.33 per cent of gross national income annually to 2050.
“The impacts of climate change are evident all around us, but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow,” said Prof Pierre Friedlingstein, of Exeter Global Systems Institute in the UK, who led the global review.
“It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at Cop29 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2-degree target alive,” he said.
Their study estimates the remaining carbon budget before the 1.5-degree target is breached consistently over multiple years – not just for a single year. At current levels the Global Carbon Budget team estimates a 50 per cent chance global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees consistently in about six years “and therefore the time left to meet the 1.5-degree target and avoid the worse impacts of climate change is running out fast”, said Prof Friedlingstein.
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