Global Carbon Emissions Reach New Record High

[Buster's Uncle]

Global Carbon Emissions Reach New Record High
LiveScience.com
By Becky Oskin, Senior Writer  1 hour ago



The Eastern Hemisphere of Earth can be seen in this "blue marble" view captured by NASA's Suomi NPP satellite.



Concentrations of carbon dioxide will surge to a new high in the atmosphere in 2014, scientists announced today in advance of the U.N. Climate Summit in New York City.

Global carbon dioxide emissions are projected to soar to 44 billion tons (40 billion metric tons) this year, a 2.5 percent increase from 2013 levels, according to joint studies published today (Sept. 21) in the journals Nature Climate Change and Nature Geoscience. The new estimates come from the Global Carbon Project, an international effort to track the global carbon cycle, from sky to sea.

This week, leaders of 125 countries will meet in New York for the U.N. Climate Summit, which is intended to jump-start a global pact to cut greenhouse gases and slow down climate change.

The study authors warn that the world has 30 years to reverse the ominous trend before global warming surpasses the 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) target set at a 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen.

"Globally, emissions would need sustained and unprecedented reductions  of around 7 percent [each] year for a likely chance to stay within the quota," study co-author Glen Peters, of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, said in a statement. "If carbon capture and storage technologies are not realized, it may not be possible to keep the temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius."

About 75 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from burning fossil fuels such as oil and gas, and from making cement, the study reports. In the atmosphere, carbon dioxide absorbs heat and raises temperatures on Earth. Because the gas lingers in the atmosphere for decades, even immediate and drastic cuts won't lower its levels for decades.

The biggest carbon dioxide offenders are China, India, the United States and the European Union. Data shows China's per capita emissions now outstrip Europe's for the first time. However, the United States still has the highest per capita consumption. Each person in the United States has a carbon footprint of 18 tons (16.4 metric tons) per year, more than twice that of a person in China and eight times that of someone in India.

"If this were a bank statement, it would say our credit is running out," Dave Reay, a climate scientist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland who was not involved in the study, said in a statement. "[A]voiding dangerous climate change now requires some very difficult choices. Not least of these is how a shrinking global carbon allowance can be shared equitably between more than 7 billion people and where the differences between rich and poor are so immense."

Here are the emission counts for 2013:

India's emissions jumped by 5.1 percent, the biggest expansion of any country, thanks to that nation's rapid economic growth. But India's total emissions make up just 6.5 percent of the global total.

China's emissions increased by 4.2 percent, a somewhat smaller increase compared to previous years. China now accounts for 28 percent of global emissions, more than the United States and Europe combined.

The United States' emissions rose by 2.9 percent, due to a rebound in coal consumption. U.S. emissions had declined by 3.7 percent in 2012. The country's contribution last year made up 14 percent of global emissions.

The European Union's emissions fell by 1.8 percent, due to a weak economy in some member countries. Europe emitted 10 percent of global carbon dioxide.


http://news.yahoo.com/global-carbon-emissions-reach-record-high-170737795.html

[Buster's Uncle]

China, US, India push world carbon emissions up
Associated Press
By SETH BORENSTEIN  1 hour ago



In this Wednesday, July 31, 2013, file photo, a worker levels the coal on a freight train in Taiyuan in northern China's Shanxi province. Spurred chiefly by China, the United States and India, the world spewed far more carbon pollution into the air last year than ever before, scientists announced Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014, as world leaders gather to discuss how to reduce heat-trapping gases. (AP Photo/File)



WASHINGTON (AP) — Spurred chiefly by China, the United States and India, the world spewed far more carbon pollution into the air last year than ever before, scientists announced Sunday as world leaders gather to discuss how to reduce heat-trapping gases.

The world pumped an estimated 39.8 billion tons (36.1 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide into the air last year by burning coal, oil and gas. That is 778 million tons (706 metric tons) or 2.3 percent more than the previous year.

"It's in the wrong direction," said Glen Peters, a Norwegian scientist who was part of the Global Carbon Project international team that tracks and calculates global emissions every year.

Their results were published Sunday in three articles in the peer-reviewed journals Nature Geoscience and Nature Climate Change.

The team projects that emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas from human activity, are increasing by 2.5 percent this year.

The scientists forecast that emissions will continue to increase, adding that the world in about 30 years will warm by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) from now. In 2009, world leaders called that level dangerous and pledged not to reach it.



Graphic shows world carbon dioxide emissions since 1959; 1c x 4 inches; with BC-Climate Emissions; ETA 1 p.m.; 1c x 4 inches; 46.5 mm x 101 mm;


"Time is running short," said Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter in England, one of the studies' lead authors. "The more we do nothing, the more likely we are to be hitting this wall in 2040-something."

Chris Field, a Carnegie Institution ecologist who heads a U.N. panel on global warming, called the studies "a stark and sobering picture of the steps we need to take to address the challenge of climate change."

More than 100 world leaders will meet Tuesday at the U.N. Climate Summit to discuss how to reverse the emissions trend.

The world's three biggest carbon polluting nations — China, the U.S. and India — all saw their emissions jump. No other country came close in additional emissions.

Indian emissions grew by 5.1 percent, Chinese emissions by 4.2 percent and the U.S. emissions by 2.9 percent, when the extra leap day in 2012 is accounted for.



In this Feb. 8, 2012 file photo provided by China's Xinhua News Agency, workers load coal onto a train in Jiujiang, east China's Jiangxi Province. Spurred chiefly by China, the United States and India, the world spewed far more carbon pollution into the air last year than ever before, scientists announced Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014, as world leaders gather to discuss how to reduce heat-trapping gases. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Hu Guolin)


China, the No. 1 carbon polluter, also had more than half the world's increases over 2012. China's increases are slowing because the Chinese economy isn't growing as fast as it had been, Peters said.

The U.S. had reduced its carbon emissions in four of the five previous years. Peters said it rose last year because of a recovering economy and more coal power.

Only two dozen of the about 200 countries cut their carbon emissions last year, led by mostly European countries. Spain had the biggest decrease.

The world emissions averaged to 6.3 million pounds (2.9 million kilograms) of carbon dioxide put in the air every second.

___



An architectural light show entitled illUmiNations: Protecting Our Planet, designed to inspire action on climate change, is projected on the side of United Nations headquarters Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014. More than 120 world leaders convene Tuesday for a U.N. summit aimed at galvanizing political will for a new global climate treaty by the end of 2015. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)


Online:

Nature Geoscience: http://www.nature.com/ngeo

Global Carbon Project: http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/


http://news.yahoo.com/china-us-india-push-world-carbon-emissions-170301040--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

World greenhouse emissions threaten warming goal
AFP
1 hour ago



Laborers work in a coal chemical factory in Huaibei, China, on August 14, 2013 (AFP Photo/)



Oslo (AFP) - Emissions of greenhouse gases are rising so fast that within one generation the world will have used up its margin of safety for limiting global warming to 2°C (3.6°F), an international team of scientists warned Sunday.

A report by the Global Carbon Project (GCP), published two days ahead of the UN climate summit on Tuesday, found that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement production grew by 2.3 percent in 2013, reaching a record 36 billion tonnes of CO2. It predicted a further 2.5-percent increase in 2014.

It means that the world's "carbon quota" is fast being used up, according to the GCP research. Like an allowance, the quota is the maximum of heat-trapping gas that can be emitted before warming breaches 2°C as compared to the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1750.

"With current emission rates, the remaining 'quota' to surpass 2°C of global warming will be used up in around 30 years -- or one generation," its authors said.

"Total future CO2 emissions cannot exceed 1,200 billion tonnes for a likely -- 66 percent -- chance of keeping average global warming under 2°C since pre-industrial times."

"Globally, emissions would need sustained and unprecedented reductions of around seven percent per year for a likely chance to stay within the quota," warned Glen Peters of Norway's Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo (CICERO).

"If this were a bank statement it would say our credit is running out," Dave Reay, a professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said in a commentary. "We've already burned through two-thirds of our global carbon allowance and avoiding dangerous climate change now requires some very difficult choices."

Tuesday's summit in New York aims at giving a political push to meeting the UN target on climate change.

Member states have agreed to limit global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, although they have not set a date by which this should be achieved.

The negotiations are supposed to climax in Paris at the end of 2015, providing a global pact that should come into force in 2020. But the talks are complex and bitterly-fought, with divisions over who should shoulder the burden of curbing the emissions.

Although the 2°C goal is aimed at preventing "dangerous" climate change, scientists are cautious about endorsing it, saying the figure is no guarantee of avoiding damage to weather systems, amplifying such problems as drought, floods and storms and loss of land from rising seas.


- China key for change -

The report said most of the world's largest carbon emitters last year continued their upward curve.

China, which has been the world's No. 1 emitter since 2006, increased its CO2 emissions by 4.2 percent in 2013, while those of the United States and India grew by 2.9 and 5.1 percent respectively.

Only one of the main emitters, the European Union (EU), managed to reduce its figures last year, achieving a reduction of 1.8 percent due mostly to a weak economy and despite a rise in coal consumption by Finland, Germany and Poland.

China is responsible for 28 percent of all CO2 emissions, followed by the United States (14 percent) and Europe (10 percent), according to the GCP analysis.

"China now emits more than the US and EU combined and has CO2 emissions per person 45 percent higher than the global average, exceeding even the EU average," said Robbie Andrew at CICERO.

"This is an interesting trend and shows the important role China will play in addressing the climate challenge," said Sybil Seitzinger, director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), based in Stockholm.

The research was published in two peer-reviewed journals, Nature Geoscience and Nature Climate Change.


http://news.yahoo.com/world-greenhouse-emissions-threaten-warming-goal-195431529.html