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 World CO2 emissions continue to rise -- see the lower chart below.

These two charts show emissions from burning fossil fuels and from making cement and steel, i.e., they exclude emissions from agriculture and forest clearing.

The countries in the top chart produce ~60% of these types of emissions.  Emissions in the EU have fallen 40% from their peak in 1979, and are back at 1963 amounts.  Emissions in the USA peaked in 2007, and have fallen 20% since then.   Unfortunately, emissions from China and India have risen so much that they more than offset the reduction in the two biggest economic blocs in the world.  China passed the EU in 2000, and the US in 2006.  India's emissions already exceed Europe's. 

If China's emissions peak this year or next, because of the roll-out of renewables and the expansion of EVs, then world emissions will have peaked, except .... India's emissions are booming.  If India's emissions go on rising as fast as they have been, the fall in China's emissions will be completely offset.

The good news is that the costs of solar, wind and storage continue to decline.  Regardless of your stance on climate change, it now makes sense to switch from fossil fuels in electricity generation and land transport.  The process is slowed down because of the existing capital stock/vehicle fleet, which will prolly take 15 or 20 years to be replaced.  

But emissions from cement and steel production, and emissions in agriculture, remain problematic.  We are just at the beginning of technological advances which will find new ways of producing steel and cement, or low-carbon replacements for these products.  As for agriculture, no one is willing to forgo meat and dairy, and in fact poorer countries are consuming more as they get richer.

Also, the declines in emissions in the USA and the EU have been welcome, but they're not fast enough.  The US's emissions have fallen by just 1.8% per year since 2007, the EU's by 0.6% per annum since 1979, though the rate has increased to 2.1% per annum since 2006.  To stop temperatures rising, we need to slash emissions by at least 90%.  If emissions decline by 2% per annum, it will take 100 years before they fall by 90%.  At a 3% per annum decline, emissions will fall 90% in 65 years.  At a 4% per annum decline, we'll reach that goal in 45 years, at 5% in 35 years.  The logic is obvious.

10 years ago, I wrote about "The 4% Club", arguing for a 4% per annum cut in emissions in developed countries to allow for a 1% per annum rise in developing countries.  But global emissions have risen 6% since then, not fallen.  Global temperatures are now rising by 0.3 degrees per decade, not 0.2.  We are running out of time.

Setting a target of net-zero at some distant point in the future won't achieve the kind of cuts we need in emissions.  We need to set annual targets for emissions cuts.  High annual targets.  4% a year is just too little, now.  It might have worked if we'd started it in 2014.  It's way too slow now.

Developed countries need to target an annual emissions cut of at least 5% a year, every year.  China needs to peak its emissions, and start an accelerated decline.  Given China's investment in renewables and her huge expansion of EVs/PHEVs, I think that's likely.  But I've been wrong before.  And, even though India is investing in solar, the single-minded pursuit of "new energy markets" so obvious in China, isn't evident in India.  Try harder, India.

Yet I get the depressed feeling that none of this will happen.  In 2014, I thought rationality would triumph.  Now, I doubt that.  Mankind has shown a distressing ability to avoid serious action while pretending heartily that something is being done.   We collectively prefer greenwashing to actual steps to cut emissions.  Easy lies instead of hard truths.

At a 2% per annum decline---which is optimistic given China's and India's emissions pathways---we'll zoom past the 1.5 degree target (if we haven't already) and be heading for 2.7 degrees or more.

Welcome to Hell.

Source: Our World in Data