Originally Posted by xrough

Study : Carbon emissions climbing at alarming rate

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Carbon emissions grew an alarming three times faster between 2000-2004 than in the 1990s worldwide, as wealthy and developing nations showed no progress in managing the greenhouse gas, a US study said Monday.

Carbon emissions grew at a 3.1 percent annual rate between 2000-2004, compared to 1.1 percent per year in the previous decade, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The rise is a reversal of a long-term trend toward greater energy efficiency and reduction in the use of carbon fuels, the researchers said.

"No region is decarbonizing its energy supply," said the study published in the scientific journal's May 21-25 edition.

"Despite the scientific consensus that carbon emissions are affecting the world's climate, we are not seeing evidence of progress in managing those emissions in either the developed or developing countries," said study co-author Chris Field.

"In many parts of the world, we are going backwards," said Field, director of the Carnegie Institution's global ecology department.

Moreover, the study said, the growth of global emissions in the 2000s was faster than in the highest scenarios by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations' scientific authority on global warming.

The accelerating rate of carbon dioxide emissions is largely due to rising energy consumption and use of carbon to produce it, in tandem with increasing population and per-capita gross domestic product, the study said.

The acceleration of carbon emissions was biggest in developing nations with booming economies such as China, where the rise reflects the growth in per capita GDP, the study said.

Developing nations contribute about 40 percent of total emissions, but they were responsible for a large majority of the growth in carbon dioxide emissions between 2000-2004, the study said.

In 2004, nearly three-quarters of the growth in emissions arose from the world's developing and least developed economies, which make up 80 percent of the global population.

Developed nations, including the former Soviet Union, contributed some 60 percent to the total emissions, the study said. The world' wealthiest nations account for 77 percent of total emissions since the industrial revolution.