Carbon emissions in India to increase by 8.2%, 4% in China in 2023: Study

Carbon emissions in India are projected to increase in India by 8.2 per cent in 2023, and by 4 per cent in China, according to an international research.

Global emissions from coal, oil and gas are all projected to increase by 1.1, 1.5 and 0.5 per cent, respectively, even as they are predicted to decline in the EU and the USA by 7.4 and 3 per cent, respectively, the research team that included the University of Exeter, UK, and 90 other institutions globally said in its report.

The Global Carbon Budget report, produced by more than 120 scientists, provides an annual, peer-reviewed update, building on established methodologies, the researchers said.

The report projects total global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, arising out of both fossil fuels and land-use change, to be 40.9 billion tonnes in 2023. Of these, 36.8 billion tonnes would be from fossil fuels, up 1.1 per cent from 2022.

Atmospheric CO2 levels are projected to average 419.3 parts per million in 2023, more than 50 per cent above pre-industrial levels, the researchers said in their report to be published in the journal Earth System Science Data.

Further, current levels of technology-based Carbon Dioxide Removal, which exclude nature-based means such as reforestation, amount to about 0.01 million tonnes CO2, more than a million times smaller than current fossil CO2 emissions, they said.

About half of all CO2 emitted continues to be absorbed by land and ocean "sinks," with the rest remaining in the atmosphere where it causes climate change, the researchers said.

On the possibility of meeting the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement, the research team estimated a 50 per cent chance global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius consistently in about seven years, if current emissions persisted.

"It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5 degrees Celsius target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree (on) rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2 degrees Celsius target alive," said Pierre Friedlingstein from the University of Exeter, who led the study.