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Ambitious new emission pledges and a plan to end deforestation in the coming decade are critical initiatives for the world to keep global heating below 2C, the COP26 Climate Change Summit heard this week.
These also happen to be two of the major outcomes agreed upon by leading countries like the US, China, Australia and India in the first week of the Glasgow-based summit.
It follows Australia unveiling its plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 on October 26.
So, with all this talk about greenhouse emissions - what exactly are they, and which countries are producing the most?
The world is in danger of missing Paris Agreement goal of limiting the rise in global temperature to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. (9News)
What are greenhouse gas emissions?
There are five main gases that trap heat in earth's atmosphere and contribute to the greenhouse effect.
These are:
How greenhouse gases contribute to global warming. (Climate Central)
What is the biggest cause of emissions?
The majority of emissions is carbon dioxide, which is released through the burning of fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas.
Carbon dioxide is now reaching levels 50 per cent higher than before the Industrial Revolution, recent data from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii shows.
Smoke pours from the steelworks and coal loading facility in Port Kembla, NSW. (Getty / Brook Mitchell)
Burning coal provides electricity, heat, and transportation, but some countries, like Australia, rely on coal more than others.
What countries produce the most greenhouse gas emissions?
With the world's largest population - home to more than 1.4 billion people - China is by far, the world's biggest emitter of CO2 emissions.
Smoke billows from a large steel plant in Inner Mongolia, China. (Getty)
Emissions from China contribute 28 per cent to global emissions.
This is followed by the United States which contributed 15 per cent of global emissions and India, which clocked in at 7 per cent.
So what happens if we don't reduce CO2 emissions?
If countries don't agree to cut emissions then the world will see warming "well above" 3 degrees by 2100, according to the COP26 presidency.
This could be potentially catastrophic, as the planet is already feeling the effects of a warming climate.
A red sky above Mallacoota in East Gippsland, Victoria during the Black Summer bushfires of 2019/2020. (AAP)
Already at 1.1 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the world is heading for average global temperatures of 1.5 degrees faster than scientists thought, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) "code red" report said.
If greenhouse gasses are reduced today, that threshold is on track to be crossed in the mid-2030s.
Earth's global average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record, according to an analysis by NASA. (NASA)
Stephen Mudoga, 12, the son of a farmer, chases away a swarm of locusts on his farm as he returns home from school, at Elburgon, in Nakuru county, Kenya. (AP)
Rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, increasing sea levels due to melting ice caps, fierce storms, raging fires, drop in crop yields and insect and disease outbreaks - are all a reality of climate change.
A recent UN state-of-the-science climate report found Australia is already experiencing more heat extremes and higher sea level rises than the global average because of climate change.
Global warming is threatening Australia's beaches, the tourism industry and seafood production more than ever before, a United Nations climate panel has found. (AAP)
Okay then, so how do we reduce emissions?
Climate leaders at the COP26 talks in Glasgow, Scotland, on Thursday intensified their efforts to put an end date on the use of coal.
China, the US, the European Union and India account for half of all the greenhouse gas polluting the world. (AP)
At the G20 meeting in Rome over the weekend, leaders failed to specify how they would phase out coal. It will be a tough ask to convince developing countries to go further than the rich world.
The picture is fairly rosy in western Europe and even the United States, where it seems the fossil fuel is indeed on its last legs, save for some pockets of resistance.
Belgium, Austria and Sweden are among a growing number of European countries that no longer use coal to generate electricity.
In the US, which technically has no coal phaseout plan, coal has wound down dramatically in favour of natural gas, which emits about half the carbon dioxide.
A slow but steady increase in wind power is also helping put coal out of business.
Globally, proposed coal plants are rapidly being cancelled. A report by climate think tank E3G found a 76 per cent reduction in proposed coal power since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.
But the trend is distributed unevenly.
Coal plants are still on rise throughout much of Asia, and while power generation from coal technically peaked in 2013, it has basically plateaued since then.
The current global energy crisis, triggered by a quicker-than-expected economic rebound amid the pandemic, has even given it a bump. Coal prices last month were at an all-time high.
For every Belgium, Austria and Sweden there is a China, India, and Indonesia, where coal is still king.
Consigning coal to history is a requirement to rein in rapid climate change, but it may not happen as quickly as Western climate leaders may like.
But there has been some movement.
The UK government on Thursday announce that 18 new countries - including big coal users like Poland and Vietnam - have joined more than 40 others
in a commitment to stop building new coal projects and to phase out the fossil fuel by 2030 for developed nations, and 2040 for the developing world.
Despite all this progress, a true global transition from coal will only happen when China decides.
www.9news.com.au
These also happen to be two of the major outcomes agreed upon by leading countries like the US, China, Australia and India in the first week of the Glasgow-based summit.
It follows Australia unveiling its plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 on October 26.
So, with all this talk about greenhouse emissions - what exactly are they, and which countries are producing the most?
The world is in danger of missing Paris Agreement goal of limiting the rise in global temperature to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. (9News)
What are greenhouse gas emissions?
There are five main gases that trap heat in earth's atmosphere and contribute to the greenhouse effect.
These are:
- Carbon dioxide
- Methane
- Nitrous oxide
- Fluorinated gases
- and finally water vapour, which is produced naturally.
How greenhouse gases contribute to global warming. (Climate Central)
What is the biggest cause of emissions?
The majority of emissions is carbon dioxide, which is released through the burning of fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas.
Carbon dioxide is now reaching levels 50 per cent higher than before the Industrial Revolution, recent data from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii shows.
Smoke pours from the steelworks and coal loading facility in Port Kembla, NSW. (Getty / Brook Mitchell)
Burning coal provides electricity, heat, and transportation, but some countries, like Australia, rely on coal more than others.
What countries produce the most greenhouse gas emissions?
With the world's largest population - home to more than 1.4 billion people - China is by far, the world's biggest emitter of CO2 emissions.
Smoke billows from a large steel plant in Inner Mongolia, China. (Getty)
Emissions from China contribute 28 per cent to global emissions.
This is followed by the United States which contributed 15 per cent of global emissions and India, which clocked in at 7 per cent.
So what happens if we don't reduce CO2 emissions?
If countries don't agree to cut emissions then the world will see warming "well above" 3 degrees by 2100, according to the COP26 presidency.
This could be potentially catastrophic, as the planet is already feeling the effects of a warming climate.
A red sky above Mallacoota in East Gippsland, Victoria during the Black Summer bushfires of 2019/2020. (AAP)
Already at 1.1 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the world is heading for average global temperatures of 1.5 degrees faster than scientists thought, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) "code red" report said.
If greenhouse gasses are reduced today, that threshold is on track to be crossed in the mid-2030s.
Earth's global average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record, according to an analysis by NASA. (NASA)
Stephen Mudoga, 12, the son of a farmer, chases away a swarm of locusts on his farm as he returns home from school, at Elburgon, in Nakuru county, Kenya. (AP)
Rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, increasing sea levels due to melting ice caps, fierce storms, raging fires, drop in crop yields and insect and disease outbreaks - are all a reality of climate change.
A recent UN state-of-the-science climate report found Australia is already experiencing more heat extremes and higher sea level rises than the global average because of climate change.
Global warming is threatening Australia's beaches, the tourism industry and seafood production more than ever before, a United Nations climate panel has found. (AAP)
Okay then, so how do we reduce emissions?
Climate leaders at the COP26 talks in Glasgow, Scotland, on Thursday intensified their efforts to put an end date on the use of coal.
China, the US, the European Union and India account for half of all the greenhouse gas polluting the world. (AP)
At the G20 meeting in Rome over the weekend, leaders failed to specify how they would phase out coal. It will be a tough ask to convince developing countries to go further than the rich world.
The picture is fairly rosy in western Europe and even the United States, where it seems the fossil fuel is indeed on its last legs, save for some pockets of resistance.
Belgium, Austria and Sweden are among a growing number of European countries that no longer use coal to generate electricity.
In the US, which technically has no coal phaseout plan, coal has wound down dramatically in favour of natural gas, which emits about half the carbon dioxide.
A slow but steady increase in wind power is also helping put coal out of business.
Globally, proposed coal plants are rapidly being cancelled. A report by climate think tank E3G found a 76 per cent reduction in proposed coal power since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.
But the trend is distributed unevenly.
Coal plants are still on rise throughout much of Asia, and while power generation from coal technically peaked in 2013, it has basically plateaued since then.
The current global energy crisis, triggered by a quicker-than-expected economic rebound amid the pandemic, has even given it a bump. Coal prices last month were at an all-time high.
For every Belgium, Austria and Sweden there is a China, India, and Indonesia, where coal is still king.
Consigning coal to history is a requirement to rein in rapid climate change, but it may not happen as quickly as Western climate leaders may like.
But there has been some movement.
The UK government on Thursday announce that 18 new countries - including big coal users like Poland and Vietnam - have joined more than 40 others
in a commitment to stop building new coal projects and to phase out the fossil fuel by 2030 for developed nations, and 2040 for the developing world.
Despite all this progress, a true global transition from coal will only happen when China decides.
What countries produce the most greenhouse gas emissions?
www.9news.com.au
