Climate Change May Cause Warming Above 2 Degrees: Dwindling Chances for Climate Goal

As our climate continues to change and as carbon dioxide emissions continue to mount, scientists are becoming less and less optimistic about our chances to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Now, they've announced that it's highly unlikely we'll meet that goal due to the concentration of greenhouse gases.

In an effort to track carbon emissions, the Global Carbon Project (GCP) published three peer-reviewed articles identifying the challenges for society to keep global average warming less than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, the findings aren't all that encouraging.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production actually grew 2.3 percent to a record high of 36.1 billion tons in 2013. In 2014, emissions are actually estimated to increase a further 2.5 percent, which is 65 percent above the level of 1990. Needless to say, this isn't helping curtail warming.

"China now emits more than the U.S. and EU combined and has CO2 emissions per person 45 percent higher than the global average, exceeding even the EU average," said Robbie Andrew, a co-author of the new studies, in a news release.

The scientists found that the four top emitters of CO2 included Chinese emissions, U.S emissions, Indian emissions and EU emissions.

"China continues to reshape the global distribution of emissions, and as politics impedes significant progress in the U.S. and other key countries, observers increasingly look to China to provide a breakthrough in climate negotiations," said Glen Peters, another co-author for the new studies. "Globally emissions would need sustained and unprecedented reductions of around 7 percent/year for a likely chance to stay within the quota. Furthermore, because of differentiated capabilities some countries would need even higher rates of emissions reductions. These rates have not been seen in any individual country outside of severe economic crises."

The researchers point out the importance of implementing carbon capture and storage methods in order to even come close to keeping warming temperatures beneath 2 degrees C. At the current warming, though, it's likely that we won't succeed unless drastic measures are taken.

The findings are published in Earth System Science Data Discussions, Nature Geoscience, Nature Climate Change and Nature Climate Change.