December 2024 saw the pace at which carbon dioxide accumulates in the Earth's atmosphere reach a new record high.

Measured as the trailing twelve month average of the year-over-year change in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory, December 2024's pace of CO₂ accumulation was 3.53 parts per million. This rate surpasses the previous record of 3.49 parts per million set in January 2017.

That older record had been boosted by the very strong El Niño event of 2015-16 and the related massive Indonesian wildfires of 2016.

2024 saw another very strong El Niño event, but unlike 2016, did not see wildfires on a similar scale. What makes 2024 different is the growth of carbon dioxide emissions in China, which surpasses all other industrialized and developing nations by a wide and growing margin.

The following chart presents the trailing twelve month average of the year-over-year change in the pace of carbon dioxide accumulation in the Earth's atmosphere from January 2000 through December 2024.

In terms of world history, China is on pace to become the largest national contributor of carbon dioxide to the Earth's atmosphere before the end of the 2020s.

References

Global Carbon Project. Global Carbon Budget 2024. 13 November 2024. Preprint DOI: 10.5194/essd-2024-519.

Global Carbon Project. Supplemental data of Global Carbon Budget 2024 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. Global Carbon Project. 13 November 2024. DOI: 10.18160/gcp-2024.

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Earth System Research Laboratory. Mauna Loa Observatory CO2 Data. [Online Data]. Updated 5 January 2025. Accessed 9 January 2025.

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