Do the latest emissions figures suggest we’re finally taking climate change seriously?
The climate emergency is undoubtedly the greatest problem we face. Some uninformed people may play it down or pretend it doesn’t exist, but this is an unparalleled disaster: humanity has modified our planet to the point of making it uninhabitable, and this despite being a species that, like a mold on the surface of an orange, colonizes a very small layer of it.
While the problem remains crucial, there are glimmers of hope that after many years of procrastination, we might just be starting to act collectively with a minimum of common sense for the future. Our margin for evasion is decreasing with each passing minute, but the latest emissions data suggests we’re on the way to being able to solve the problem.
After the hiatus caused by the pandemic, which is a tiny blip in an evolution that has doubled our emissions in the last 40 years, last year they were the highest ever. But many countries have begun to curb them or at least stabilize them, and everything points to a peak around 2025 and a decline thereafter. The United States reached this peak in 2005 and has declined by 10% since then, while Russia, Japan and, particularly, the European Union (following the Russian invasion of Ukraine) have also managed to halt their growth.
