It’s bad news, folks.
Modeling by oil giant BP has shown that carbon dioxide emissions increased by 2 per cent in 2017-18.
If that doesn’t sound like a lot, then you should know that is the largest increase in seven years – and that’s off a very high base.
BP’s modelling did show that investment in renewable technologies increased by 15 per cent in the past year.
With global temperatures already up by 1 degrees on average since the start of the industrial revolution, weather patterns are fast becoming weird.
Last year there were simultaneously a record-breaking hot days and record-breaking cold days across the globe.
This necessitated a large increase in energy consumption in order to keep those in Cairo cool and those in Wellington warm.
The increased demand for energy was filled by old king coal.
Although coal’s share of the global energy market is falling, the consumption and production of coal ramped up at its fastest rate in half a decade in the last year, substantially contributing to the increased co2 output.
With current modeling predicting a global temperature increase of another degree by the end of the century, even BP’s chief economist, Spencer Dale, cannot deny the solution to the problem:
“Renewables can’t grow quickly enough.”
But so long as our politicians remain less environmentally conscious than executives at multinational energy corporations, I won’t hold my breath.