Pace of Carbon Dioxide Emissions Continues at New Record Highs

The pace at which carbon dioxide is being emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere is continuing to set new record highs.

China, by far and away, the world’s largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, helped cinch the new record. A new analysis by Carbon Brief indicates “the tail end of China’s rebound from zero-Covid in January and February, combined with abnormally high growth in energy demand, stopped CO2 emissions falling in 2024 overall,” despite China’s surge in green energy production during the year.

Carbon Brief estimates China’s overall CO₂ emissions “grew by an estimated 0.8% year-on-year”. That growth may may sound small, but since China’s emissions are so large, even a small percentage increase in its CO₂ output carries substantial impact. Carbon Brief also recently confirmed that China’s emissions have caused more global warming than the 27 countries that make up the European Union. Not that that’s any kind of surprise.

In the last two decades, much of the increases in the rate at which carbon dioxide accumulates in the Earth’s atmosphere can be traced to Chinese government’s various efforts to stimulate China’s economy. The following chart highlights that contribution from January 2000 through January 2025:

China’s ending of its repressive zero-Covid lockdown policy at the end of 2022 constitutes the beginning of its latest stimulus. Combined with China’s government’s ongoing efforts to continue its stimulus effort to offset recessionary forces acting within the Chinese economy, the result is the record high rate of CO₂ accumulation in the modern era, which now extends back over sixty-five years. The next chart illustrates that history:

What defines the modern era is the collection of data on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s air. Those measurements began at the remote Mauna Loa Observatory in March 1958. Since our long-term chart tracks the year-over-year change in atmospheric CO₂ we could have set its initial month at March 1959, but we opted for January 1960 instead to align it with the beginning of a calendar year.

In any case, the following references provide links to the Mauna Loa Observatory’s full dataset of its atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements.

References

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Earth System Research Laboratory. Mauna Loa Observatory CO2 Data. [Online Data]. Updated 5 February 2024.

Image credit: Jungliangcheng Power Plant in Tianjin, China by Shubert Ciencia on Flickr. Creative Commons CC by-SA 2.0 Attribution 2.0 Generic Deed.