Global CO2 emissions are set to stall in 2015

By The Data Team

RESEARCH by Robert Jackson, from Stanford University in California, and Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, in Britain, and others from the Global Carbon Project, an analysis group, just published in Nature Climate Change, estimates that the growth of carbon-dioxide emissions around the world will stall in 2015. The main reason the academics have for thinking so is China’s economic slowdown. The drop in that country’s coal consumption means that in 2014 its emissions of the gas grew by only 1.2%—in contrast to an average annual growth rate over the ten previous years of 6.7%. Total CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry around the world grew just 0.6% in 2014. That was down from an average of 2.4% in the prior decade. Delegates to the current UN climate negotiations in Paris may tout this as evidence that economic growth can be uncoupled from increasing emissions, for gross world product last year increased by 2.5%.