William Brangham:

That's right, Amna.

A new report by the Global Carbon Project says worldwide emissions grew by 1.6 percent last year, and are expected to rise another 2.7 percent this year. Carbon dioxide is the main gas that's driving climate change and the dangerous rise in global temperature.

The Paris accord hoped to limit that warming to just 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but this recent report seems to make that goal increasingly hard to reach.

Much of the increase in emissions is from growth in China and India. China is now the world's largest carbon emitter, followed by the U.S.

This report is just the latest in a series of very recent stark warnings about climate change. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put it this way: "We are in deep trouble. It is hard to overstate the urgency of our situation."

I'm joined now by David Victor. He's a professor of international relations at U.C.-San Diego, and author of "Global Warming Gridlock" about why we have failed to address this issue thus far.

David Victor, thank you very much for being on the "NewsHour."

We had seen from 2014, I believe, to 2016 that global emissions had flattened out. So this rise came as something of a surprise. Can you help us understand a little bit, what is driving this?