Climate-warming CO₂ emissions will hit a record high in 2019
Despite decades of warnings from scientists about the dangers of climate change, the world is on track to hit a new record high for climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. By year’s end, fossil fuels will have flooded the atmosphere with about 36.8 billion metric tons of CO2 in 2019 — up from 36.57 billion tons in 2018, according to monthly emissions data reported by and estimated for different regions. And increasing use of oil and natural gas means those emissions levels will probably keep rising, researchers predict online December 4 in Environmental Research Letters. The usual suspects Total carbon dioxide emissions are still rising globally from fossil fuel use as well as cement manufacturing and flaring, or controlled gas burning during oil extraction (bars represent global emissions from each source for each year from 2000 to 2018). The release of CO2 from coal burning is tapering off, but “increases in natural gas...