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While world leaders assemble in the Brazilian Amazon for Cop30, it is essential to review our collective progress in lowering global greenhouse gas emissions.

In spite of 30 years of UN climate summits, nearly 50% of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution has been emitted after the year 1990. Coincidentally, 1990 was the publication of the First Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which confirmed the danger of human-caused global warming. As scientists work on the Seventh Assessment Report, they do so knowing that their work remains overshadowed by political influences. Despite well-intentioned efforts, the planet is remains dangerously off track to avert catastrophic climate change.

Unprecedented CO₂ Levels and Carbon-Based Fuel Dependency

Latest figures show that CO₂ concentrations reached a new peak of 423.9 ppm in the year 2024, with the growth rate from 2023 to 2024 jumping by the biggest annual rise since modern measurements began in 1957. Based on the Global Carbon Project, ninety percent of total global CO₂ emissions in last year originated from burning fossil fuels, while the remaining 10% resulted from land-use changes such as deforestation and forest fires.

While the increase in fossil CO₂ emissions in 2024 was propelled by increased use of gas and oil—representing more than 50% of worldwide discharges—coal burning also attained a historic peak, constituting forty-one percent. In spite of the previous climate summit's evaluation calling for nations to move beyond fossil fuels, collective plans still aim to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in the year 2030 than aligns with keeping planet heating to 1.5C, with ongoing drilling of gas justified as a lower emission transition fuel.

The Mirage of Eco-Friendly Measures

Rather than focusing on economic incentives to speed up the elimination of carbon fuels, environmental strategies are overly dependent on feelgood eco-positive solutions that seek to neutralize carbon emissions by afforestation instead of cutting industrial emissions. While conserving, enlarging, and rehabilitating natural carbon sinks like woodlands and marshes is beneficial in itself, studies has shown that there is not enough land to achieve the global goal of carbon neutrality using nature-based solutions alone.

Approximately 1 billion hectares—an area larger than the United States of America—is needed to fulfill net zero pledges. Over forty percent of this land would need to be transformed from existing uses like agriculture to carbon sequestration projects by the year 2060 at an unprecedented rate.

Even if this ideal restoration could be achieved, woodlands require years to grow and can burn down, so they cannot be considered as a fast or permanent carbon storage solution, especially in a fast-changing climate. While severe temperatures and dryness engulf more of the planet, these sincere attempts could actually be destroyed by fire.

The Diminishing of Natural Carbon Sinks

Scientific evidence indicates that about half of the total CO₂ emitted annually stays in the air, while the remainder is absorbed by oceans and land ecosystems. With global heating, these environmental absorbers are becoming less effective at capturing CO₂, which means that additional CO2 builds up in the atmosphere, further exacerbating climate change. Shifting the reduction responsibility onto the agricultural and forest sectors simply relieves the fossil fuel industry from the urgency to reduce emissions any time soon.

The Carbon Debt and Coming Populations

Achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century requires carbon dioxide removal (CDR), which at present depends largely on land-based measures to absorb excess carbon from the atmosphere. Emitting companies can easily buy carbon credits to counterbalance their emissions and continue with business as usual. At the same time, the energy imbalance resulting from the burning of fossil fuels continues to further disrupt the global climate system. In effect, we are increasing our climate liability to our global account, passing on our descendants with an insurmountable burden.

To limit the scale and length of overshoot the Paris Agreement temperature goals, the world eventually needs to surpass the neutralising effect of net zero and start to drawdown cumulative historical emissions to reach a carbon-negative state.

The Political Distortion of Net Zero

According to the latest numbers from the Global Carbon Project, plant-based carbon removal is presently absorbing the equivalent of about 5% of annual fossil carbon dioxide emissions, while technology-based CDR represents only about one-millionth of the carbon released from carbon sources. More generous industry estimates place it at around 0.1% of total global emissions. Without meaning to be controversial, the policy twisting of net zero is a deceptive gap that distracts from the research-based necessity to eradicate the main source of our overheating planet—carbon-based energy.

The Critical Requirement for Concrete Action

While this research-backed truth should dominate discussions at Cop30, history suggests that polite incrementalism and political kowtowing will win out. Vague statements of future ambition will continue to postpone the urgent need for concrete immediate action. Until policymakers are brave enough to put a price on carbon to bring the era of fossil fuels to a definitive end, we are adding more and more carbon to the atmosphere, worsening the physical catastrophe currently happening across the globe.

The challenge we confront is straightforward: take real action to the scientific reality of our crisis or suffer the consequences of this profound moral failure for generations ahead.