Global Greenhouse Emissions Projected to Increase for Third Year in a Row

A new analysis by the Global Carbon Project found that worldwide greenhouse emissions are projected to increase for the third year in a row in 2019.

Total emissions are expected to increase by 0.6% from 2018 to 2019, breaking another record high with total carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry reaching an estimated 36.8 billion tons.

The Global Carbon Project is an academic group that releases a report on greenhouse emissions each year.

“We’re blowing through our carbon budget the way an addict blows through cash,” Rob Jackson, chair of the Global Carbon Project, told The Washington Post. “It’s troubling because carbon dioxide pollution is higher than it’s ever been.”

However, emissions coming from the U.S. actually are projected to decrease by 1.7% in 2019 after rising in 2018. The Global Carbon Project attributes that to coal being replaced by natural gas and other renewable energies. The European Union also will likely see a decrease in emissions.

“We’re not in the same position we were five or 10 years ago,” Corinne Le Quéré, a member of the team that published the Global Carbon Project’s figures, told the Post. “We have demonstrated that making these investments [in renewable energy] do pay off, that emissions can go down.”

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Rising emissions are flying in the face of the goals of the Paris climate agreement, which mandated a sharp drop in worldwide emissions.

The Global Carbon Project’s analysis is not the only bad news on the worldwide environmental front to come out recently.

On Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organization published its findings that the earth has warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s. The report also found that 2019 broke multiple records for heat and “concludes a decade of exceptional global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities.”

According to the organization, 2019 will likely be the second- or third- warmest year on record.

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