"Climate change: Global carbon dioxide emissions stall for second year in a row." Notice the fraud in the photo of cooling towers emiting steam not burned fossil fuel. If zero emissions is the goal then they want no life on earth.

Climate change: Global carbon dioxide emissions stall for second year in a row

But scientists warn that this does not mean the world has reached 'peak carbon' 

• Steve Connor Science Editor  
• @SteveAConnor 
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Despite emissions stalling, around 35 billion tonnes of CO2 from fossil fuels and industry are still being emitted each year PA

Global emissions of carbon dioxide this year have stalled for the second year in a row, but scientists have warned that this does not mean the world has reached “peak carbon” with greenhouse gases set to fall year on year.

Latest figures on fossil-fuel emissions for 2015 show for the first time during a period of global economic growth that the amount of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere has remained stable for two consecutive years.

Scientists believe however that the unprecedented decline is almost entirely due to the economic slowdown in China, now the world’s single biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, which is likely to see a rapid return to growth in carbon emissions as its energy-hungry economy picks up again.

India and other developing nations are also expected to increase the amount of coal they burn in the coming years. This is likely to feed in to an overall increase in the growth in global carbon emissions globally, making the current slowdown a transitory “blip”, the scientists said.

“With two years of untypical emissions growth, it looks like the trajectory of global emissions might have changed temporarily,” said Professor Corinne Le Quéré, director of the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia, a lead author of the study presented at the Paris conference on climate change.

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“It is unlikely that emissions have peaked for good. This is because energy needs for growing economies still rely primarily on coal, and emissions decreases in some industrial countries are still modest at best,” Professor Le Quéré said.

“Global emissions need to decrease to near zero to achieve climate stabilisation. We are still emitting massive amounts of CO2 annually, around 35 billion tonnes from fossil fuels and industry alone. There is still a long way to near zero emissions,” she said.

Carbon emissions for 2014 grew by just 0.6 per cent compared to an average annual increase of between 2 and 3 per cent since 2000, apart from a brief period of decline in 2009, explained by the worldwide economic recession leading to a fall in energy demand.