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Carbon emissions rising faster than ever

Global Carbon Project report confirms alarming expectations

Wetter und Klima (Symbolbild)
Image: NASA

Far from slowing down, global carbon dioxide emissions are rising faster than before, said a gathering of scientists in Beijing on Friday. Between 2000 and 2005, emissions grew four times faster than in the preceding 10 years. Global growth rates were 0.8% from 1990 to 1999. From 2000 to 2005, they reached 3.2%.
The Global Carbon Project report shows that carbon dioxide emissions over the last five years resembled one of the scenarios which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses to predict how the world will change with greenhouse gas emissions. The «A1B» scenario assumes that 50% of energy over the next century will come from fossil fuels, resulting in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations causing drastic climatic consequences.
«On our current path, we will find it extremely difficult to rein in carbon emissions enough to stabilise the atmospheric CO2 concentration at 450 parts per million and even 550 ppm will be a challenge,» says Josep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project. Research suggests that stabilising carbon dioxide concentrations at 450 ppm could limit global warming to 2°C.
The authors also highlight the importance of environmental inertia. This is the mechanism by which the environment stores up part of the energy of generated by greenhouse gas emissions, only releasing it to the atmosphere later on. As a result, even when human emissions do begin to drop, atmospheric carbon dioxide will continue to rise for up to a century. Global temperatures will continue to increase for two or more centuries. The report shows how important it is to work towards more ambitious climate targets beyond 2012 when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Source: NewScientist.com

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