Humans Have Released An All-Time High 37.1 Billion Tons Of Carbon Dioxide In The Air In 2018

Global warming is something that's already on humanity's radar, if not highest on our list of priorities. But it may be a much bigger problem than we've imagined. Scientists now say that global emissions levels of carbon dioxide reached record levels in 2018.

Emissions largely plateaued between 2014 and 2016, which lead countries to believe we have a chance of beating climate change with the methods we're currently employing. However, we then found out global emissions grew by 1.6 percent in 2017. In 2018, they're projected to have grown by an even higher 2.7 percent.

This rise would bring global fossil fuel and industrial emission levels to a record high of 37.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide in a single year. A whopping 5 percent of that increase is from China, and sadly an even higher 6 percent from India.

"We are in trouble," said United Nations Secretary General Ant¨®nio Guterres at the 24th annual UN climate conference this week. "We are in deep trouble with climate change. It is hard to overstate the urgency of our situation. Even as we witness devastating climate impacts causing havoc across the world, we are still not doing enough, nor moving fast enough, to prevent irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption."

The report, which was the work of scientists with the Global Carbon Project underlines what researchers have previously said, that the world simply isn't doing enough to stop global warming. According to most estimates, we have just about 10 years to make "drastic changes", or we won't survive. And for that to happen, it's up to world leaders to come to another compromise to replace the Paris Climate agreement.