Even as carbon emissions from use of fossil fuels flattened out in the past few years, the monster El Nino of 2014-16 caused over 3 billion tonnes of carbon to get released into the atmosphere, pushing carbon dioxide concentration to record levels. Besides these, warmer weather and near normal rainfall in Africa caused forests to exhale more CO2.The new measurements are a first for satellite tracking CO2 levels. In recent times, CO2 emissions from burning of fossil fuels had flattened out to about 36.2 billion tonnes in 2014 and 2015. While emissions from European Union countries have actually increased in 2015, the rate at which US and Japan's emissions are declining does not bode well to what they had pledged at Paris. The US has, in any case, withdrawn formally from the Paris deal after Donald Trump took over.

Source: Times of India August 13, 2017 22:33 UTC