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Environment

2024 could finally see greenhouse gas emissions start to decline

If governments step up support for renewable energy and other efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 2024 could see total carbon emissions begin to fall

By James Dinneen

29 December 2023

Carbon emissions from fossil fuels could finally start to fall in 2024

Bilanol/Shutterstock

Planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions have been on the rise since the industrial revolution, and 2023 appears to have been no different. This year saw a more than 1 per cent increase in emissions from burning fossil fuels compared with 2022, according to the Global Carbon Budget compiled by Pierre Friedlingstein at the University of Exeter in the UK and his colleagues.

But 2024 could see these emissions begin to decline for the first time, driven mainly by the unprecedented…

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