Paula Fernández
Madrid, Jan 27 (EFE) .- The world commemorates on Tuesday the World CO2 emission reduction day between records of concentrations and temperatures, with the unknown of the impact that Donald Trump can have to favor fossil fuels and calls to greater ambition.
CO2 emissions reached 41,6 billion tons in 2024, about 2.5 % more than a year earlier, according to the projections of the Global Carbon Project International Panel.
Experts project increases in countries such as India (4.6 %) and China (0.2 %), while falling falls in the European Union (3.8 %) and the United States (0.6 %).
The arrival of Donald Trump to the White House and his promise to favor fossil fuels opens the unknown of the effect that he can have on United States emissions, but also in global policies.
“There is a worldwide trend towards decarbonization, which is an unstoppable force. But, indeed, Trump’s arrival will make this speed instead of accelerating can be slowed down,” the person in charge of the campaign against the campaign assumed EFE The climate change of Greenpeace Spain, Pedro Zorrilla.
Trump will withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre -industrial levels.
Agencies and organizations such as the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), of the European Union, and NASA confirmed this month that in 2024 the average temperature of the earth exceeded that barrier.
Although this does not mean that Paris has been breached, since this threshold must be overcome in the last 30 years, it is a “warning,” says Zorrilla, a doctor of ecology and environment, which asks for more ambition to reduce Emissions.
The natural disasters that devastated the world in 2024, such as fires in Chile, hurricanes Helene and Milton, drought in the Amazon or Dana in Valencia are also a warning.
In Spain, gross emissions were reduced by 7.6 % in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to the latest National Inventory of Emissions to the atmosphere published by the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
The official data of 2024 are not available, but the Basque Center for Research on Climate Change BC3 warned that they would have increased 0.9 %.
“In Spain we would need a shock plan similar to the one that was launched with the pandemic to achieve in these five years, before 2030, reduce the emissions by half,” defends the head of Greenpeace.
The Government updated last September the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) 2023-2030 with more ambitious objectives, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 32 % compared to 1990 and that 81 % of the electricity generation is renewable.
The renewables, one of the sectors that have helped the most reducing emissions, represented 50.3 % of the production of Spain in 2023.
“The objectives of the PNIEC are ambitious and we have to go for them,” the Spanish director of the Spanish Energy Club (Enerclub) tells Efe, Arcadio Gutiérrezthat appeals to caution on the ‘Trump effect’ and points out that in its first mandate the emissions of the American energy sector were reduced.
With challenges ahead such as the development of networks, the need to accompany the supply with demand, storage and administrative agility, Gutiérrez defends that it is necessary to maintain the positive trend initiated by energy but also see what happens with more lagging sectors In decarbonization.
Especially transport, which led emissions in Spain in 2023 with 31 % of the total.
Renewables, sustainable mobility or reducing meat consumption are some of the strategies to reduce emissions, among which controversial measures such as carbon markets have also emerged.
This instrument, which allows countries that release little CO2 sell issuance rights to those who generate the most, is included in the Paris Agreement and last November a pact was reached in the COP29 of Baku to create a regulated world market.
The measure, however, does not convince environmentalists: “It is a solution driven from the industry to continue doing the usual and not have to reduce their emissions,” says Zorrilla from Greenpeace. EFE
PFM/CC
Only an emission cut led by the G20 will limit global warming, warns the UN
