On Nov. 11, 2022, the Global Carbon Project (GCP) released its Global Carbon Budget for 2022, compiled among 105 people in 80 organizations across 18 countries, to coincide with the United Nations COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. On the same day, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed to strengthen regulations on monitoring and control of methane and other emissions associated with oil and gas production, transportation, and storage (OGJ Online Nov. 11, 2022).
GCP estimates that up to 35.1 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 emissions came from burning coal, oil, and gas in 2022, representing 90% of anthropogenic carbon emissions. Emissions from coal (15.1 Gt) rose significantly 2000-10 but have since plateaued and are 22% above emissions from oil, but below combined emissions from oil and gas (20.0 Gt). For context, the Deep Carbon Observatory program at the National Academy of Sciences estimates about 0.28-0.36 Gt/yr CO2 outgassed from volcanoes and other magmatically active regions.
Although emission increases have slowed from 3%/year in the 2000s to about 0.5%/year in the past decade, the GCP describes total carbon emissions in stark terms: “Current CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are unprecedented in the last 2 million years, and the current rate of atmospheric CO2 increase is at least 10 times faster than at any other time during the last 800,000 years.”
The sudden change has contributed to the sixth mass extinction (Holocene or Anthropocene extinction), with extinction rates estimated at 100 times previous levels. According to Anthony Barnosky, paleobiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, about half of all wildlife on Earth have died off in the past 40 years, and he expects 30% of the species living today to be lost in the next 40 years. Alaskan crab fishermen are currently facing this prospect as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game cancelled the 2022-23 crab seasons for certain species.
The take home lesson of the GCP report was that total anthropogenic CO2 emissions must be reduced by about the same amount as they were during the COVID-19 pandemic, each year on average, to achieve net-zero carbon and temperature goals by 2050. This would appear to be a Sisyphean task. Countries with stakes in high production and consumption of oil and gas undercut significant COP27 emission goals. The final COP27 agreement mostly outlined a loss and damage fund for poor countries affected by climate change without concrete plans to reduce emissions.
Fortunately, the land and sea are still absorbing carbon, though the ocean absorption rate is flattening. The GCP report did not go into the effects of additional carbon in the ocean, but extensive coral bleaching is now common. In March 2022, 91% of the Great Barrier Reef suffered from bleaching, and it also marked the first time the reef bleached during a cooling La Niña weather event.
Land-use change emissions accounted for 10% of the anthropogenic total. Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were the top three land-use emitters, contributing more than half of total global land-use emissions. The typical US consumer, however, has no right to judge, because the US produces the highest emissions per capita in the world. Fortunately, US per capita emissions have been on a steady decline since 2000. The Chinese, by contrast, are second on the list and have been on a steady increase during the same period.
On a country-wide basis, China is the highest emitter with slightly more than twice US emissions. China has recently slowed its emissions due to weak economic growth, which is a positive trend for decarbonization but not for standard of living. India, by contrast, has recently experienced strong economic growth that is not offset by decarbonization, and its fossil CO2 emissions have sharpy increased. Both trends go against the goal to increase GDP while leveling and preferably reducing carbon emissions.
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
