Riots in France by the so-called gilets jaune (yellow vest) protestors were triggered by a planned rise in fuel taxes. How fitting that those protests coincided with the COP 24 climate change summit in Katowice this week, and new data showing that greenhouse gas emissions continue to accelerate — and fast.
“We’ve seen oil use go up five years in a row,” Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford, and co-author of the report “Global energy growth is outpacing decarbonization,” told The New York Times this week. Meanwhile, carbon emissions are expected to grow 2.7 percent in 2018 to a new report by the Global Carbon Project. That report compared current trends to a “speeding freight train”.