2016 on track to beat heat record despite slowdown in CO2 emissions

Global temperatures are soaring toward arecord high this year, the UNweather agency said Monday, whileanother report showed emissions of a key global warming gas haveflattened out in the past three years.

The reports injected a mix of gloom and hope at UNclimatetalks in Marrakech this week.

"Another year. Another record. The high temperatures we saw in2015 are set to be beaten in 2016," said Petteri Taalas, the headof the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

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The WMO's preliminary data through October showed world temperatures,boosted by the El Nino phenomenon, are 1.2 C above pre-industrial levels.

That's getting close to the limit set by the global climateagreement adopted in Paris last year. It calls for limiting the
temperature rise since the industrial revolution to 2 degrees C oreven 1.5 degrees C.

The WMO said 16 of the 17 hottest years have occurred this century.The only exception was 1998, which was also an El Nino year.

Taalas said parts of Arctic Russia saw temperatures soaring 6 to 7degrees C above average. "We are used to measuring temperature records in fractions of a degree, and so this is different," hesaid.

Environmental groups and climate scientists said the reportunderscores the need to quickly reduce the emissions of carbondioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet.

Some positive news

Another report released Monday delivered some positive news,showing global CO2 emissions have flattened out in the past threeyears. However, the authors of the study cautioned it's unclear whether the slowdown, mainly caused by declining coal use in China,is a permanent trend or a temporary blip.

"It is far too early to proclaim we have reached a peak," saidco-author Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center forInternational Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

This could be the turning point we have hoped for.- DavidRay,University ofEdinburgh

The study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data,says global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry isprojected to grow by just 0.2 per cent this year.

That would mean emissions have levelled off at about 36 billionmetric tons in the past three years even though the world economy has expanded, suggesting the historical bonds between economic gainsand emissions growth may have been severed.

"This could be the turning point we have hoped for," said DavidRay, a professor of carbon management at the University ofEdinburgh, who was not involved with the study. "To tackle climatechange those bonds must be broken and here we have the first signsthat they are at least starting to loosen."

Chinese emissions were down 0.7 per cent in 2015 and areprojected to fall 0.5 per cent in 2016, the researchers said, thoughnoting that Chinese energy statistics have been plagued byinconsistencies.

Peters said it remains unclear whether the Chinese slowdown wasdue to a restructuring of the economy or a sign of economicinstability, but the unexpected reduction in Chinese emissions"give us hope that the world's biggest emitter can deliver muchmore ambitious emission reductions."

China, which accounts for almost 30 per cent of global carbonemissions, pledged to peak its emissions around 2030 as part of theglobal climate pact adopted in Paris last year. Many analysts sayChina's peak is likely to come much earlier and may already haveoccurred.

"The continued decline of China's CO2 emissions, combined withknowledge of structural change in the energy system, does indicatethat CO2 emissions from China may have peaked.However a few moreyears of data is needed to confirm this," said Bill Hare, ofClimate Analytics, a separate group that monitors global emissions.

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Even if China's emissions have stabilized, growth in India andother developing countries could push global emissions higher again.India's emissions rose 5 per cent in 2015, the study said.

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States the world's No. 2 carbon polluter could also have an impact.

U.S. emissions fell 2.6 per cent last year and are projected todrop 1.7 per cent this year, as natural gas and renewables displacecoal in power generation, the study showed. But it's unclear whetherthose reductions will continue under Trump, who has pledged to rollback the Obama administration's environmental policies, includingthe Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon pollution from power plants.

Other researchers not affiliated with the study stressed thatit's not enough for global emissions to stabilize; they need to droptoward zero for the world to meet the goals of the Paris deal.

"Worryingly, the reductions pledged by the nations under theParis Agreement are not sufficient to achieve this," said climatescientist Chris Rapley of University College London.