Carbon Dioxide Emissions Surged to Record Levels in 2024
Global carbon dioxide emissions hit unprecedented highs in 2024, with a record increase of 3.5 parts per million from the previous year, leading to warnings of long-term temperature increases and more extreme weather. Human activities, wildfires, and reduced carbon sequestration in natural sinks were cited as the main reasons for the acceleration of emissions, with experts cautioning that continued high emissions could lead to the exceedance of critical climate tipping points.
Global carbon dioxide emissions rose by a record amount in 2024 to hit unprecedented highs, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
The WMO’s latest greenhouse gas bulletin warned that the acceleration of carbon dioxide emissions is committing the planet to long-term temperature increases.
The global average of carbon dioxide emissions increased by 3.5 parts per million (ppm) from 2023 to 2024, triple what the growth rate was in the 1960s and significantly above the 0.8 ppm to 2.4 ppm annual increases recorded from 2011 to 2020.
The most surprising element is that we are surprised that we reached a new peak. If we continue on this path, we are very likely to see the exceedance of 1.5 ºC.
Along with carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, the two other most long-lived greenhouse gases emitted by human activities, also reached record levels.
“The heat trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases is turbo-charging our climate and leading to more extreme weather,” said Ko Barrett, the WMO’s deputy secretary-general. “Reducing emissions is therefore essential not just for our climate but also for our economic security and community well-being.”
The WMO cited human activities, an upsurge in wildfires and reduced carbon sequestration of natural “sinks,” including in land ecosystems and the ocean, as the main reasons for the emission acceleration.
See Also:What 485 Million Years of Climate History Tell Us About Today’s CrisisThe latter points confirm the findings of a 2024 study, which linked higher concentrations of carbon dioxide with the reduced effectiveness of trees in warm regions to sequester it.
“We found that trees in warmer, drier climates are essentially coughing instead of breathing,” said Max Lloyd, an assistant professor of geosciences at Penn State University in the United States and the study’s lead author. “They are sending CO2 right back into the atmosphere far more than trees in cooler, wetter conditions.”
The WMO added that the occurrence of El Niño in the southern Pacific Ocean in 2023 and 2024 increased ocean temperatures, which also hampers its ability to sequester carbon, and likely contributed to the acceleration of emissions.
However, Carlo Buontempo, the director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, told the BBC that human activity remained the most significant driver of emissions.
According to data from the International Energy Agency, global carbon dioxide emissions from energy combustion and industrial processes reached 37.6 billion metric tons in 2024.
Since world leaders signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they have only declined in two years: the 2008 financial crisis and during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Buontempo added that given the inability of countries to reduce emissions, this new record should not come as a surprise.
“The most surprising element is that we are surprised that we reached a new peak,” he said. “If we continue on this path, we are very likely to see the exceedance of 1.5 ºC,” in reference to the multiple climate tipping points anticipated to be triggered by an increase in average temperature of 1.5 ºC above the pre-Industrial average.
A 2022 study published in Science identified ice sheet collapses in Greenland and West Antarctica, changes in a significant north Atlantic ocean current, biodiversity loss in tropical coral reefs and abrupt permafrost loss as consequences of increased global emissions that would become “self-perpetuating” if the 1.5 ºC mark is exceeded.
“This sets Earth on course to cross multiple dangerous tipping points that will be disastrous for people across the world,” Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a co-author of the study, told The Guardian in 2022.
“To maintain liveable conditions on Earth and enable stable societies, we must do everything possible to prevent crossing tipping points,” he concluded.
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