Carbon Emissions Set to Rise in 2017 After Two Years of Plateau

Via James Wimberley, the Tyndall Center estimates that the recent plateau in carbon emissions is over. Total carbon emissions will grow about 2 percent this year, driven by higher emissions in developing countries:

Both the EU and the US have been reducing carbon emissions for the past decade, and so has China for the past couple of years. But China is projected to rise a lot this year, and the combined rise of China, India, and ROW are more than enough to counter the small reductions from the EU and US.

Wimberley thinks this is most likely a blip, and China will return to slow or no growth in the near future. I’m a little less confident, since I read Chinese domestic politics a little differently than he does. But I hope he’s right.

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