The runaway train that is climate change is about to blow past another milestone: global fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions will reach yet another record high. Driven by rising natural gas and oil consumption, levels of CO 2 are expected to hit 36.8 billion metric tons (40.6 billion U.S. tons) this year, according to new estimates from the Global Carbon Project, an initiative led by Stanford University scientist Rob Jackson.

A liquified natural gas tanker at dock. Because of greater supply and cheaper prices, natural gas usage has surged, accounting for 60 percent of fossil emissions growth in recent years. (Image credit: Ken Hodge/Flickr)

The findings are outlined in three new papers published in Earth System Science Data, Environmental Research Letters, and Nature Climate Change. Although the rate of emissions growth is slower than in the previous two years, the researchers warn emissions could keep increasing for a decade or more unless energy, transportation and industry policies change dramatically across the world.

“When the good news is that emissions growth is slower than last year, we need help,” said Jackson, a professor of Earth system science in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). “When will emissions start to drop?”

The new projections come as international negotiators meet in Madrid for the 25th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Jackson and his colleagues make clear policymakers have their work cut out for them, estimating global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel sources – which represent roughly 90 percent of all emissions from human activities – will grow a projected 0.6 percent over 2018 emissions. That compares to 2.1 percent growth a year earlier and 1.5 percent growth in 2017.

Glimmers of hope, such as the dramatic decline of coal use in the European Union and United States, are overshadowed by surging natural gas and oil use around the world, according to the researchers. Per capita emissions in affluent countries remain disproportionately high – a fact that further complicates the picture as developing countries seek greater prosperity through more natural-gas-fueled electricity and gasoline-powered vehicles and air travel.

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Concept by Rob Jackson, visualization by Alistair Fitter and Jerker Lokrantz. From Future Earth and the Global Carbon Project, this animation shows the atmosphere as a “bucket” filling with greenhouse gas pollution, from 1870 to 2019.

“Emissions cuts in wealthier nations must outpace increases in poorer countries where access to energy is still needed,” said Pierre Friedlingstein, a mathematics professor at the University of Exeter and lead author of the Global Carbon Budget paper in Earth System Science Data.

Coal’s decline and natural gas’s rise

The group found that the U.S., E.U. and China account for more than half of all carbon dioxide emissions globally. While annual emissions are decreasing slowly in many industrialized regions, including the U.S., where they are down a projected 1.7 percent since last year, they are growing in many countries, including China, where they should rise 2.6 percent this year. About 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions were attributable to coal use, 34 percent from oil, 20 percent from natural gas, and the remaining 6 percent from cement production and other sources.

Although still a major factor in global emissions, coal has taken a hit, with global usage down 0.9 percent for the past year. In 2019, consumption of coal is expected to drop 11 percent in the U.S. – down 50 percent from its peak in 2005 – displaced by cheaper natural gas, wind and solar power, as well as savings from energy efficiency. Coal use should drop a further 10 percent in the E.U. In China, which accounts for half of global coal use, growth slowed to 0.8 percent this year due in part to China’s economic downturn.