Global CO2 emissions rise 3 percent in 2011: report
Climate change is upon us folks and it’s only going to get worse. Yes, events like the current U.S. drought, which is being called one of the worst in recent memory, cannot be conclusively linked to climate change but it is entirely consistent with what climate scientists have been predicting as the world warms up. And the more we hear scientists talk about the desperate need to decrease global carbon emissions, the more they seem to go in the exact opposite direction.
Now a new report published Wednesday by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) says that global carbon dioxide emissions rose 3 percent to 34 billion tonnes in 2011, undermining a U.N. goal to limit the rise in global average temperatures to 2C above industrial levels by 2050.
According to the report, nations cannot emit more than 1.5 trillion tonnes of CO2 between 2000 and 2050 to meet the threshold recommended by a U.N. scientific panel. We’ve already pumped roughly 450 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere since 2000 so we’re already overshooting our limits. And keep in mind that the report, by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the E.U.’s Joint Research Centre, does not include carbon dioxide emitted by deforestation, forest fires and other land-use related activities.
Global CO2 emissions rise 3 percent in 2011: report.
