In past couple years industrial emissions of carbon dioxide had reached a plateau, but in the recent months emissions are projected to rise to reach record highs in 2017. Global emissions from fossil fuels and industry are on track to increase roughly 2 percent over last year’s levels, driven in part by increased coal use in China which is the world’s largest emitter of CO2. Global carbon dioxide emissions increased at a rate of more than 2 percent per year for much of the 21st century. This is large due to rapidly industrializing countries like China and India which have built hundreds of coal plants and put millions of new cars on the road in this period. This fact clearly shows the link between economic development and carbon dioxide emissions growth no matter the anti-emissions policies that are currently in place. However from 2014 to 2016, industrial emissions barely grew at all, even as the global economy continued to expand which contrasted previous data gathered. Some people thought the sharp cost reductions in renewable energy, combined with the growing push to tackle climate change in the United States, Europe and China, had fundamentally altered the path the worth is going towards concerning carbon dioxide emissions. However data recorded in 2017 again follows the previous trend of increasing carbon dioxide emissions. After a brief dip last year, China’s carbon dioxide emissions are projected to rise approximately 3.5 percent this year. India also increased its emissions by 2 percent as well and although Europe and the United States show decreased emissions of greenhouse gases the total percent decrease is less than the decrease from previous years. Much of the fall in American emissions has come as increasing supplies of natural gas, wind and solar power have driven hundreds of coal plants into retirement but in order for there to be significant world change, China and India have to follow the trend.

Increasing CO2 admissions should be a major concern for not just select modernized countries that produce the majority of CO2 admissions but for nations worldwide. Global temperature changes are a real thing and the fact the rising temperatures can be seen in direct correlation with an increase in industrialization over the past decades and centuries show that human industrialization is the problem. And if we caused the problem then we should put our best efforts to fix it. Under the 2015 Paris agreement countries around the world agreed that they would reduce greenhouse gases emissions in order to combat the rising issue of climate and temperature change. While most countries have been successful in reducing their emissions the rate at which we reduce emissions is too low and for some countries like China and India CO2 emissions actually increased. Glen Peters, a researcher at the Center for international Climate Research in Norway says “These numbers suggest we still don’t have sufficient policies in place to prevent global emissions from rising, let alone to force them downward.” In order for there to be the legitimate change in how our use of industrialization and coal plants affect CO2 emissions every nation has to put increased efforts into reducing emission through policy changes and if necessary, an international conference to discuss the 2015 Paris agreement concerning greenhouse gases.

 

Citation:

Popovich, Brad Plumer And Nadja. “CO2 Emissions Were Flat for Three Years. Now They’Re Rising Again.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/13/climate/co2-emissions-rising-again.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate&action=click&contentCollection=climate®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront.