India to end 2018 by emitting 6% more carbon

India is set to end 2018 by emitting 6.3% more carbon dioxide compared to last year's release, says a new report that tracks emission pattern across the world.

Riding high on more than 7% economic growth, India's carbon emission increase rate eclipses that of China and USA in 2018. But the world's largest democracy comes at the third spot after China and the US, if one takes into account the total amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere.

China accounts for 27% of the global carbon emission and looks set to grow by 4.7%, reaching a new all-time high. Renewed emission growth in China is closely linked to construction activity and economic stimulus.

The US emissions, accounting for 15% of the globe's, will rise by 2.5% in 2018 after several years of decline. This is largely due to weather conditions requiring more heating in cold months and more cooling in hot months.

India accounts for 7% of emissions, but will continue the strong growth as it is set to release 6.3% more carbon compared to 2017.

This is increased consumption of all types of fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas, says the Global Carbon Budget 2018 report published on Wednesday in three scientific journals, Nature, Earth System Science Data and Environmental Research Letters. The maximum emission growth was seen in coal followed by gas.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industry are projected to rise for the second consecutive year in 2018 by more than 2% to a new record, mainly due to sustained growth in oil and gas use.

The projection by the Global Carbon Project estimates that carbon dioxide emissions will rise 2.7%. In 2017, carbon emissions grew by 1.6% after a period of three years.

Prepared by academics across the world, the publication of the report coincided with the ongoing UN climate conference at Katowice in Poland.

Although global coal use is still 3% lower than its historical high, it is expected to grow in 2018, driven by growth in energy consumption in China and India.

European Union accounts for 10% of the world's emission, but remained the only part of the world where carbon emission level decreased in the last one year.

“Being a growing economy, India's green house gas emissions will increase. The problem for us is that larger advanced countries have already captured bulk of the world's carbon budget,” said Arunabh Ghosh, chief executive officer, Council on Energy, Environment and Water — a non-governmental outfit in Delhi that is not linked to the Global Carbon project report.

According to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change's special report on the Global Warming of 1.5 degrees C, the world will have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2010's level and reach zero emission by 2050 if it has to stay within the guard-rail of 1.5 degrees rise.

“On the 1.5 degrees target, we have a carbon budget of 500 billion tonnes equivalent of carbon dioxide, which would be exhausted in 10 years,” said Chandra Bhusan, deputy director general of Centre for Science and Environment.

“India needs to accept that the carbon budget has shrunk and find out a new way to grow the economy on a non-carbon path. But it is the rich nations that consume bulk of the carbon budget, leaving little for others,” Ghosh told DH from Katowice.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is set to reach 407 parts per million in 2018, 45% above pre-industrial revolution levels.