CO2 emissions up 2.7%, world 'off course' to curb warming: study

[PARIS] Global emissions of carbon dioxide mainly from fossil fuel burning will rise 2.7 per cent in 2018, scientists said Wednesday, signalling a world "completely off course" in the fight against climate change.

Last year, CO2 pollution increased by 1.6 per cent after a three-year hiatus that raised hopes manmade greenhouse gas emissions had finally peaked despite an expanding world economy.

"This growth in global CO2 emissions puts the goals set out in the Paris Agreement in jeopardy," lead author Corinne Le Quere, director of the Tyndall Centre of Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, said in a statement.

The findings, co-authored by a team of nearly 80 scientists, were published in Open Access Earth System Science Data.

AFP