Climate change: The latest inventory

The annual inventory report [PDF] of our greenhouse gas emissions was released today. The good news: our emissions in 2015 were flat, with a slight decrease on 2014:


Digging deeper, there was a 1% decrease in agricultural emissions due to drought (meaning fewer sheep and cows), partially offset by an increase in industrial emissions. Energy sector emissions also increase slightly, though are looking pretty flat as well. None of this was a result of government policy. Instead, the main driver was the weather.

Holding emissions to a steady level rather than letting them grow is good, but if we want to beat this we need to actually decrease them. And on that front, its worth remembering that our emissions have increased by 24% since 1990, while our per-capita emissions are the 7th highest in the world. Stopping dangerous climate change means reducing emissions sharply, and that means both radically decarbonising our energy and transport systems, and reducing or massively offsetting our agricultural emissions. And that's going to make those who currently profit from destroying the global climate deeply uncomfortable.