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U.N. agency: 2016 set to break heat record

World temperatures near limit set by global agreement

By KARL RITTER, Associated Press
Published: November 14, 2016, 9:11pm

MARRAKECH, Morocco — Global temperatures are soaring toward a record high this year, the U.N. weather agency said Monday, while another report showed emissions of a key global warming gas have flattened out in the past three years.

The reports injected a mix of gloom and hope at U.N. climate talks in Marrakech this week.

“Another year. Another record. The high temperatures we saw in 2015 are set to be beaten in 2016,” said Petteri Taalas, the head of the World Meteorological Organization.

WMO’s preliminary data through October showed world temperatures, boosted by the El Nino phenomenon, are 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

That’s getting close to the limit set by the global climate agreement adopted in Paris last year. It calls for limiting the temperature rise since the industrial revolution to 2 degrees C.

WMO said 16 of the 17 hottest years have occurred this century. The only exception was 1998, which was also an El Nino year.

Taalas said parts of Arctic Russia saw temperatures soaring 6-7 degrees C above average. “We are used to measuring temperature records in fractions of a degree, and so this is different,” he said.

Environmental groups and climate scientists said the report underscores the need to quickly reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for the warming.

Another report released Monday delivered some positive news, showing global CO2 emissions have flattened out in the past three years. However, the authors of the study cautioned it’s unclear whether the slowdown, mainly caused by declining coal use in China, is a permanent trend or temporary blip.

“It is far too early to proclaim we have reached a peak,” said co-author Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

The study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, says global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry is projected to grow by just 0.2 percent this year.

That would mean emissions have leveled off at about 36 billion metric tons in the past three years even though the economy has expanded, suggesting the historical bonds between economic gains and emissions growth may have been severed.

“This could be the turning point we have hoped for,” said David Ray, a professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study. “To tackle climate change those bonds must be broken and here we have the first signs that they are at least starting to loosen.”

Chinese emissions were down 0.7 percent in 2015 and are projected to fall 0.5 percent in 2016, the researchers said, though noting that Chinese energy statistics have been plagued by inconsistencies.

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