In a report published by Carbon Brief, it is mentioned that countries representing around 36% of global emissions have already peaked their emissions. This fact can be an indicator that some of the worst warming scenarios can be prevented, the report says.
Carbon Brief notices that 60% of current global emissions are occurring in countries that have or will soon peak their emissions.
That is an optimistic fact, meaning that it might be possible to keep up with limiting global in 2C.
Nowadays, 49 countries have already peaked their emissions, something that indicates that a warming of 4C can be averted. With this rhythm and providing that countries will continue reducing their emissions, global warming can be reduced to 3C, which albeit positive is far from reducing global warming to 2C, Carbon Brief explains.
In order to avoid 2C warming, it is crucial for global emission to peak in the near future and then decline rapidly.
“If global emissions peak in 2017, they need to decline by 4-8% per year. If the world waits until 2025 to start reducing emissions, reductions would have to be a massive 8% or more per year.” Carbon Brief highlights.
The report continues by saying that these emission reduction scenarios do not include negative emissions, which remove CO2 from the atmosphere. It is adding that the longer that world waits to reduce its emissions, the longer untested negative emissions technologies will be needed.
Lastly, the report presents the countries that have already peaked their emissions. According to Carbon Brief in 1990, 19 countries peaked their emissions, with many of these being part of the Soviet Union.
Furthermore, in 2000, 33 countries had peaked emissions, including the UK, France, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Moreover, in 2010, a number of additional countries in the Americas had seen their emissions peak, including the US, Canada, and Brazil.
Lastly, by 2020, the report says that Japan, New Zealand and South Korea have committed to peak, while by 2030 China, Mexico and Singapore will join them.
