Carbon emissions show sharp rise
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Carbon emissions show sharp rise*
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
The trend towards increased energy efficiency is levelling off
The rise in humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide has accelerated
sharply, according to a new analysis.
The Global Carbon Project says that emissions were rising by less than
1% annually up to the year 2000, but are now rising at 2.5% per year.
It says the acceleration comes mainly from a rise in charcoal
consumption and a lack of new energy efficiency gains.
The global research network released its latest analysis at a scientific
meeting in Australia.
Dr Mike Rapauch of the the Australian government's research organisation
CSIRO, who co-chairs the Global Carbon Project, told delegates that 7.9
billion tonnes (gigatonnes, Gt) of carbon passed into the atmosphere
last year; in 2000, the figure was 6.8Gt.
Improvements made in the last 30 years appear to be stalling
Corinne Le Quere
"From 2000 to 2005, the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions was more
than 2.5% per year, whereas in the 1990s it was less than 1% per year,"
he said.
The finding parallels figures released earlier this month by the World
Meterorological Organisation showing that the rise in atmospheric
concentrations of CO2 had accelerated in the last few years.
Intense findings
The Global Carbon Project draws its data from a wide range of sources,
including measurements of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and
studies on fossil fuel use.
From that data, researchers have extracted two trends which they
believe explain the sharp upturn found around the year 2000.
The assumption is we will solve the problem by controlling demand; but
regulating at the point of use is clearly not working
Myles Allen
"There has been a change in the trend regarding fossil fuel intensity,
which is basically the amount of carbon you need to burn for a given
unit of wealth," explained Corinne Le Quere, a Global Carbon Project
member who holds posts at the University of East Anglia and the British
Antarctic Survey.
"From about 1970 the intensity decreased - we became more efficient at
using energy - but we've been getting slightly worse since the year
2000," she told the BBC News website.
"The other trend is that as oil becomes more expensive, we're seeing a
switch from oil burning to charcoal which is more polluting in terms of
carbon."
The Project does not have data on precisely where this is happening, but
there is anecdotal evidence of increases in charcoal burning in parts of
Asia and Africa.
There have been suggestions that as temperatures rise, carbon sinks -
natural systems which absorb carbon dioxide - may become less efficient;
but Professor Le Quere said there is no evidence that this is happening
systematically.
"The land sink has been very much affected by recent droughts,
especially in the northern hemisphere," she said, "but the ocean sink
looks relatively stable and it doesn't seem there is a global trend."
Upper limits
How emissions will change over time is one of the factors considered by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body
responsible for collating and analysing climate data for the global
community.
Australia under John Howard is increasing coal exports
"At these rates, it certainly sounds like we'll end up towards the high
end of the emission scenarios considered by the IPCC," commented Myles
Allen from Oxford University, one of Britain's leading climate modellers.
The "high end" of IPCC projections implies a rise in global temperature
approaching 5.8C between 1990 and the end of this century.
"We need to think about radical alternatives to the belt-tightening
approach," said Professor Allen.
"At the moment the assumption is we will solve the problem by
controlling demand; but regulating at the point of use is clearly not
working."
At the recent United Nations climate summit in Nairobi, a number of
delegations, including those of Britain, Australia and the US, pointed
out that they had managed to grow their economies without significant
increases in carbon emissions.
But, said Corinne Le Quere, the latest data shows this approach will not
be enough to curb emissions in the future.
"Improvements that have been made in the last 30 years appear to be
stalling," she said.
"We are going to need a real decrease in emissions."