COP 31 | The CO2 budget will soon be used up

The Turkish COP President is primarily relying on electrification as a means of combating climate change. Photo: dpa/Karl-Josef Hildenbrand For the first time since the end of the corona pandemic, global CO2 emissions from fossil sources are expected to fall slightly again in 2026. The experts from the “Global Carbon Budget” project, who presented their analysis published on Tuesday in the journal “Earth System Science Data” at the UN climate conference in Antalya, expect a decline of 0.4 percent to 38.2 gigatons. Emissions are falling in almost all regions of the world, with only India recording an increase of 4.4 percent. The main reasons for the decline are the increasing availability of renewable energies and the decrease in emissions from oil consumption - a presumably only short-term effect as a result of the price increases caused by the Iran war.

However, according to the report, which involved 130 climate researchers from all over the world, total greenhouse gas emissions are likely to increase further this year - by 0.5 billion to 43.3 billion tons. This is due to significantly higher emissions from land use and the weakening of natural CO2 sinks such as oceans and forests. In particular, deforestation and more frequent peat fires in Southeast Asia as a result of drier conditions caused by the El Niño climate phenomenon are taking a toll. In other regions, such as Brazil, emissions have tended to fall in recent years.

The most important drive of the “Global Carbon Budget” project is to determine the remaining amount of CO2, the emission of which can limit global warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. This budget has now shrunk to a total of 150 billion tons, according to the report.

In the Paris Climate Agreement, the international community agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees or well below two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. The 1.5 degree mark has actually already been reached and is expected to be exceeded in the next few years. Global CO2 emissions should actually fall massively, says Julia Pongratz, professor and chair of physical geography and land use systems at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. »Of course we hope that this slight decline in fossil emissions will initiate a trend reversal this year. It’s by no means certain.”

»Of course we hope that the slight decline in fossil emissions this year will initiate a trend reversal. It’s by no means certain.”

The Turkish presidency of the UN climate conference COP 31 is emphatically insisting on sticking to the 1.5 degree target. "Even briefly exceeding this value could lead to irreversible losses and damage," said COP head Murat Kurum on Tuesday in Antalya. "We must therefore never give up the 1.5 degree target." Because of the massive consequences of climate change, which will be exacerbated this year by the natural climate phenomenon El Niño, 50 million people are at risk of massive hunger, he warned. "Our task is to limit the temperature increase, to minimize the extent and duration of the exceedance (of the 1.5 degree value, ed.) and to take the necessary steps to return to this value."

Pierre Friedlingstein of the Global Systems Institute in Exeter, England, who led the carbon budget study, said the long-term solution remains the rapid deployment of sustainable energy technologies. When it comes to the use of renewable energies and electromobility, “further acceleration is necessary if global emissions are to exceed their peak and then decline sustainably.”

The Turkish COP Presidency wants to focus on the topic of electrification at the World Climate Conference. As part of an “Action Agenda”, the approximately 200 participating states should commit to increasing the share of electricity in energy consumption from the current 20 percent to 35 percent in 2035. According to an analysis by the International Energy Agency, implementation of the proposal could lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. However, in many countries this will only be possible through a significant increase in international climate financing, a central issue for many participating states in Antalya.

Non-governmental organizations also welcome the electrification goal. An electric car uses around a third of the amount of energy that a combustion engine requires; the efficiency of a heat pump is often even better. However, for Fentje Jacobsen from the WWF environmental foundation, the most important prerequisite is that the electricity for electrification is “green”: “It must be very clear that it must be renewable electrification.”

The main reason for the far too high CO2 emissions worldwide is the continued high use of coal, oil and gas, as can also be seen from the report on the CO2 budget. From an NGO perspective, electrification must therefore be accompanied by an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels. But so far there is nothing about this in the documents from Antalya. There may be a simple reason for this: Immediately before his arrival in Antalya, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan celebrated the discovery of new oil fields. From the second half of next year, production in southeastern Turkey could "exceed the value of 100,000 barrels per day," wrote Erdoğan in the online service X. With agencies

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