Global emissions from fossil fuels and industry are on track to increase roughly 2 percent over last year’s levels, driven in part by a rebound in coal use in China, the world’s largest emitter. While dozens of nations, including the United States, have been reducing their emissions in recent years, those declines have so far been offset by rising pollution from developing countries. [...]
Under the Paris deal, the world’s nations vowed to hold the rise in global temperatures since the start of the industrial revolution to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). For that to happen, scientists say, global emissions from power plants, factories, cars and trucks, as well as those from land use change and deforestation, would need to peak in the next few years and then decline swiftly to zero before the end of the century. [...]
Then came an unexpected twist: From 2014 to 2016, industrial emissions barely grew at all, even as the global economy continued to expand. Some observers wondered if 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 world’s carbon trajectory. [...]
On the flip side, the Global Carbon Project found, at least 21 countries have managed to cut their emissions significantly while growing their economies over the past decade, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Sweden. These countries have steadily transitioned away from energy-intensive industries — or have outsourced manufacturing to countries like China — while increasing investments in efficiency and cleaner energy.
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