Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by 49 percent over the last two decades, according to the latest findings released by an international team, including researchers at the Norwich, U.K.-based Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia.
Published this week in the journal, Nature Climate Change, the new analysis by the Global Carbon Project shows an upsurge in fossil fuel emissions of 5.9 per cent in 2010, alone – and of 49 percent since 1990, the reference year for the Kyoto protocol. The report is especially relevant because the fate of the Kyoto Protocol – and the survival of the Earth’s population – hangs in the balance at the current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa.
On average, fossil fuel emissions have climbed by 3.1 per cent each year between 2000 and 2010 –three times the previous rate of increase during the 1990s. This year, emissions also are projected to rise by 3.1 percent.
Total emissions – which comprise fossil fuel combustion, cement production, deforestation, and other land-use-related emissions – reached 10 billion tons of carbon in 2010 for the first time. Half of the emissions remained in the atmosphere, where CO2 concentration reached 389.6 parts per million. The remaining emissions were absorbed by the ocean and land reservoirs, in approximately equal proportions.
Rebounding from the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, when emissions temporarily decreased, last year’s high growth was caused by both emerging and developed economies. Rich countries continued to outsource part of their emissions to emerging economies through international trade.
Contributions to global emissions growth in 2010 were largest from China, the United States, India, the Russian Federation and the European Union. Emissions from the trade of goods and services produced in emerging economies, but consumed in the West, increased from 2.5 percent of the share of rich countries in 1990 to 16 percent in 2010.
In the United Kingdom, fossil-fuel CO2 emissions grew 3.8 per cent in 2010, but still stood 14 percent below their 1990 levels. However, emissions from the trade of goods and services grew from 5 percent of the emissions produced locally in 1990 to 46 percent in 2010 – nullifying the reductions in local emissions. Therefore, U.K.-generated emissions actually rose 20 percent above their 1990 levels, when emissions from trade are included.
“Global CO2 emissions since 2000 are tracking the high end of the projections used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which far exceed two degrees warming by 2100,” said co-author Professor Corinne Le Quéré, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and professor at the University of East Anglia. “Yet governments have pledged to keep warming below two degrees to avoid the most dangerous aspects of climate change – such as widespread water stress and sea level rise, and increases in extreme climatic events.
“Taking action to reverse current trends is urgent,” she stressed.
Lead author Dr. Glen Peters, of the
Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, said, “Many saw the global financial crisis as an opportunity to move the global economy away from persistent and high emissions growth, but the return to emissions growth in 2010 suggests the opportunity was not exploited.”
Co-author Dr. Pep Canadell, executive director of the
Global Carbon Project, added, “The global financial crisis has helped developed countries meet their production emission commitments as promised in the Kyoto Protocol and
Copenhagen Accord, but its impact has been short-lived and pre-existing challenges remain.”
Cheryl Kaften is an accomplished communicator who has written for consumer and corporate audiences. She has worked extensively for MasterCard (News - Alert) Worldwide, Philip Morris USA (Altria), and KPMG, and has consulted for Estee Lauder and the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspapers. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Jennifer Russell
