Carbon Emissions Flat For Third Consecutive Year

Good news for environmentalists concerned about Donald Trump's win: for the third consecutive year, global carbon emissions did not increase too much in 2016.

The news was announced by a group of scientists from the Global Carbon Project that measured the amount of carbon dioxide that humans emit each year, as well as indicate how much of it is absorbed by plants, land surfaces and oceans. The news of emission standstill came from the group late last year, when it found that emissions in 2014 and 2015 represented what seems to be the end of a strong growth trend that concerned many scientists and environmentalists for quite some time.

At this point, the group noted that 2016 may be on a similar trend based on its projections, with only a 0.2 increase above the previous year's emission levels: barely a rise at all.

Glen Peters, one of the contributors of the research, said that they estimate the emission growth to be flat again, adding that "It's definitely three years, it's fairly flat, which is quite a contrast to a decade ago, when it was growing at about 3 percent. It's really leveled out the last few years."

The particularly low level, according to Peters, is thanks in part to a decline in emissions from the United States and China -- both of which are major ballplayers when it comes to emissions. The Washington Post noted that China saw a decrease in carbon dioxide emissions by 0.7 percent in 2015 and an additional 0.5 percent forecast for 2016.

Despite this small victory, not everyone in the world is putting in the same effort. India, for instance, had a strong 5.2 emission growth. A bigger battle still needs to be won, as the current leveling out still means that there is a little over 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide expected to have been emitted this year due to fossil fuel use and unending industrial activities.

Then, there is also the environmental fight in the U.S. President Obama vowed to reduce auto pollution by making more fuel-efficient goals to drive up gas mileage. However, with president-elect Donald Trump campaigning on reviving fossil fuel industries and roll backs on environmental regulations, the set targets of the Obama administration could be scrapped, as The New York Times pointed out.