Ariel

@ariel-j.bsky.social

PhD Candidate | Forests, Disturbance, and Carbon Sequestration | VCU Type II fun enthusiast 🏃🏾‍♀️⛰️🏕️ Wear your sunscreen

I get annoyed at the narrative that all the awareness and work on climate change hasn't done anything. Yes, global CO₂ emissions indeed continue to climb, but we don't know the counterfactual. When I was in grad school, we were on track for 5°C of warming. Now it's below 3°C. That's progress.

A line chart titled “Annual CO₂ emissions” shows the global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry from 1950 to 2023. The y-axis represents emissions in billions of tonnes (t), ranging from 0 to 40 billion t. The x-axis covers the years from 1950 to 2023.

The chart presents a steady increase in emissions from approximately 5 billion tonnes in 1950 to over 36 billion tonnes in 2023. Key features include:

A consistent upward trend from 1950 through the early 1970s.

A brief plateau and dip around 1980–1983.

A strong growth trend resuming in the late 1980s.

A sharp increase during the 2000s.

A slight drop around 2008–2009, likely due to the global financial crisis.

A major dip in 2020, attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A rapid rebound in emissions after 2020, continuing the upward trend to a new high in 2023.

A blue line labeled “World” traces these changes over time.

Below the chart, the data source is listed as the Global Carbon Budget (2024), and the graphic is credited to OurWorldInData.org with a Creative Commons license (CC BY). A footnote explains that the data includes emissions from coal, oil, gas, flaring, cement, and steel, but excludes land-use changes such as deforestation.