Greenhouse gas emission levels continued to rise in 2016

Global CO₂ emission levels remained more or less stable in 2015 and 2016, especially when taking into account that 2016 was a leap year and, therefore, 0.3% longer. The recent slowdown in the increase in CO₂ has mainly resulted from lower coal consumption due to fuel switches to natural gas and increased renewable energy in power generation.

These are the main conclusions from the report Trends in global CO₂ and total greenhouse gas emissions: Summary of the 2017 report by PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Emissions in largest countries stabilise or drop, India shows major increase

The five largest emitting countries plus the European Union, which together account for 51% of the world population, accounted for 68% of total global CO₂ emissions and about 65% of total global GHG emissions. Of those largest emitters, only India shows a significantly rising trend (+4.7% in 2016). In Russia and the United States, the trend is downwards (both -2.0%) as well as in Japan (-1.3%), whereas in China, the European Union and the group of other G20 members, levels remained more or less the same as in 2015.

Non-CO₂ sources make up 28% of global GHG emissions 

Non-CO₂ GHG emissions comprise about 28% of total GHG emissions (excluding those from land use), and consist of methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases (F-gases: HFCs, PFCs and SF₆). Methane, constituting about 19% of global emissions, is by far the largest category. Its main sources are fossil fuel production (25%), cattle (23%) and rice production (10%).

Emissions from land use and forest and peat fires uncertain

The figures quoted above for total GHG emissions do not include CO₂ emissions from land use or methane (CH_4), or nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions from forest and peat fires. Those land-use related emissions are much more uncertain and can show large interannual variations. Estimated at about 4.1 Gt CO₂ eq, they bring the total GHG emissions in 2016 to approximately 53.4 Gt CO₂ eq.