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While world leaders assemble in Brazil for the 30th UN Climate Change Conference, it is essential to assess our collective progress in cutting worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases.

In spite of three decades of United Nations climate conferences, approximately half of the CO2 built up in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution has been released after the year 1990. Coincidentally, 1990 marked the publication of the First Assessment Report by the IPCC, which verified the danger of anthropogenic climate change. As scientists work on the upcoming IPCC report, they do so knowing that their work remains overshadowed by political agendas. Regardless of well-intentioned efforts, the planet is still dangerously off track to prevent dangerous global warming.

Record-Breaking CO₂ Levels and Carbon-Based Fuel Dependency

Recent data indicate that CO₂ concentrations reached a new peak of 423.9 ppm in the year 2024, with the growth rate from the previous year jumping by the largest yearly increase since record-keeping started in 1957. According to the international carbon monitoring initiative, 90% of total global CO₂ emissions in 2024 originated from burning fossil fuels, while the remaining 10% was due to land-use changes such as deforestation and forest fires.

While the increase in fossil CO₂ emissions in recent times was propelled by higher use of gas and oil—representing more than 50% of global emissions—coal burning also reached a record high, constituting 41%. In spite of Cop28’s global stocktake urging nations to move beyond fossil fuels, collective plans still intend to extract over twice the quantity of hydrocarbons in 2030 than aligns with keeping planet heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius, with continued extraction of natural gas rationalized as a less polluting transition fuel.

The Mirage of Eco-Friendly Measures

Instead of concentrating on financial motivators to accelerate the phase-out of carbon fuels, environmental strategies are overly dependent on feelgood eco-positive solutions that seek to neutralize carbon emissions by planting trees instead of reducing industrial emissions. While protecting, expanding, and rehabilitating natural carbon sinks like woodlands and marshes is beneficial in itself, research has shown that there is not enough land to achieve the worldwide target of net zero emissions using ecological methods by themselves.

Approximately 1 billion hectares—a territory bigger than the USA—is needed to fulfill net zero pledges. More than forty percent of this area would need to be transformed from existing uses like food production to carbon sequestration projects by the year 2060 at an never-before-seen pace.

Although this regenerative utopia could be realized, forests require years to grow and are susceptible to fires, so they should not be viewed as a quick or permanent CO2 retention method, particularly in a fast-changing environment. As severe temperatures and aridity affect more of the planet, these well-intentioned efforts could actually be destroyed by fire.

The Diminishing of Planetary Absorbers

Scientific evidence tells us that about 50% of the total CO₂ emitted each year stays in the air, while the rest is absorbed by seas and land ecosystems. With global heating, these natural carbon sinks are becoming less effective at capturing CO₂, meaning that more carbon accumulates in the air, intensifying global warming. Shifting the reduction responsibility onto the land sector simply relieves the fossil fuel industry from the pressure to cut pollution in the near future.

The Carbon Debt and Future Generations

Achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century demands CO2 extraction (CDR), which at present relies almost exclusively on land-based measures to soak up surplus CO2 from the atmosphere. Emitting companies can easily purchase offsets to counterbalance their emissions and proceed with normal operations. At the same time, the energy imbalance resulting from the combustion of hydrocarbons continues to further destabilise the global climate system. Essentially, we are increasing our climate liability to our planetary credit card, leaving future generations with an unpayable liability.

To curb the scale and duration of overshoot the global warming targets, the planet ultimately needs to go well beyond the neutralising effect of net zero and start to drawdown cumulative historical emissions to achieve a carbon-negative state.

The Political Distortion of Carbon Neutrality

Based on the latest numbers from the international carbon research group, plant-based carbon removal is presently absorbing the equivalent of about 5% of yearly CO2 from fuels, while technology-based CDR represents only about one-millionth of the carbon released from fossil fuels. More generous industry estimates suggest around zero point one percent of total global emissions. At the risk of sounding like a heretic, the policy twisting of carbon neutrality is a deceptive gap that takes focus away from the research-based necessity to eradicate the main source of our overheating planet—carbon-based energy.

The Urgent Need for Concrete Action

Although this research-backed truth should lead talks at Cop30, history indicates that gradual, cautious steps and political kowtowing will prevail. Vague statements of future ambition will keep on postpone the urgent need for definite short-term measures. Unless policymakers are brave enough to put a price on carbon to terminate the age of hydrocarbons, we are releasing more and more carbon to the atmosphere, compounding the physical catastrophe now unfolding all around us.

The dilemma we face is simple: take real action to the scientific reality of our crisis or endure the consequences of this deep ethical lapse for centuries to come.