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As global leaders assemble in the Brazilian Amazon for Cop30, it is essential to evaluate how we are faring together in cutting global greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite three decades of United Nations climate conferences, approximately half of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere after the dawn of industrialization has been emitted since 1990. Coincidentally, 1990 marked the release of the initial scientific evaluation by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which confirmed the danger of human-caused global warming. As scientists prepare the upcoming IPCC report, they do so aware that their work remains eclipsed by political agendas. Regardless of well-intentioned efforts, the world is remains dangerously off track to avert catastrophic climate change.

Unprecedented CO₂ Levels and Carbon-Based Fuel Dependency

Latest figures show that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reached a record high of 423.9 ppm in 2024, with the increase rate from 2023 to 2024 surging by the largest yearly increase since record-keeping started in the late 1950s. Based on the Global Carbon Project, 90% of worldwide carbon dioxide output in last year originated from burning fossil fuels, while the remaining 10% was due to alterations in land use such as forest clearance and forest fires.

While the increase in fossil CO₂ emissions in recent times was driven by higher use of natural gas and petroleum—accounting for over half of worldwide discharges—coal burning also reached a historic peak, making up forty-one percent. Despite Cop28’s global stocktake urging nations to move beyond fossil fuels, global strategies still intend to produce more than double the amount of hydrocarbons in 2030 than is consistent with keeping global warming to 1.5C, with ongoing drilling of natural gas rationalized as a lower emission transition fuel.

The Illusion of Eco-Friendly Measures

Instead of focusing on economic incentives to accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels, environmental strategies are overly dependent on feel-good nature positive solutions that seek to neutralize carbon emissions by afforestation rather than cutting factory discharges. While protecting, enlarging, and restoring natural carbon sinks like forests and marshes is beneficial in itself, studies has shown that there is not enough land to achieve the global goal of net zero emissions using nature-based solutions alone.

Roughly one billion hectares—a territory bigger than the United States of America—is required to fulfill carbon neutrality commitments. Over forty percent of this land would need to be transformed from current applications like agriculture to carbon sequestration projects by 2060 at an unprecedented rate.

Although this regenerative utopia could be realized, woodlands take time to mature and can burn down, so they cannot be considered as a quick or lasting carbon storage solution, particularly in a fast-changing climate. As severe temperatures and dryness engulf larger regions, these well-intentioned efforts could literally be destroyed by fire.

The Weakening of Planetary Absorbers

Scientific evidence indicates that about half of the total CO₂ emitted annually remains in the atmosphere, while the rest is taken up by oceans and land ecosystems. With global heating, these environmental absorbers are losing efficiency at capturing CO₂, which means that more carbon builds up in the atmosphere, further exacerbating climate change. Transferring the mitigation burden onto the land sector effectively excuses the fossil fuel industry from the urgency to cut pollution in the near future.

The Climate Liability and Future Generations

Reaching carbon neutrality by mid-century requires CO2 extraction (CDR), which at present relies almost exclusively on land-based measures to soak up excess carbon from the air. Polluters can simply buy carbon credits to counterbalance their discharges and continue with business as usual. Meanwhile, the energy imbalance resulting from the burning of fossil fuels keeps on further disrupt the Earth’s climate. In effect, we are increasing our climate liability to our global account, leaving our descendants with an unpayable liability.

To limit the scale and length of overshoot the global warming targets, the planet ultimately needs to go well beyond the neutralising effect of carbon neutrality and begin to drawdown past carbon outputs to reach net negative emissions.

The Political Distortion of Carbon Neutrality

Based on the most recent data from the Global Carbon Project, vegetation-based CDR is currently absorbing the equivalent of about 5% of yearly CO2 from fuels, while technology-based CDR accounts for only about one-millionth of the CO2 emitted from fossil fuels. Optimistic sector projections place it at around zero point one percent of worldwide CO2 output. Without meaning to be controversial, the policy twisting of net zero is an insidious loophole that distracts from the research-based necessity to eliminate the main source of our warming world—carbon-based energy.

The Urgent Need for Concrete Action

While this scientific reality should lead talks at the climate summit, past events suggests that gradual, cautious steps and deference to politics will prevail. Ambiguous promises of future ambition will continue to delay the pressing requirement for concrete immediate action. Unless leaders have the courage to put a price on carbon to terminate the age of hydrocarbons, we are adding more and more carbon to the air, worsening the physical catastrophe currently happening across the globe.

The dilemma we confront is simple: genuinely respond to the evidence-based situation of our crisis or suffer the results of this profound moral failure for generations ahead.