Annual Average Rate Of Increase In Atmospheric CO2 2000 - 2006 - 3.1%

[hatrack]

Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the burning of fossil fuels stood at a record 8.38 gigatons of carbon (GtC) in 2006, 20 percent above the level in 2000. Emissions grew 3.1 percent a year between 2000 and 2006, more than twice the rate of growth during the 1990s. Carbon dioxide emissions have been growing steadily for 200 years, since fossil fuel burning began on a large scale at the start of the Industrial Revolution. But the growth in emissions is now accelerating despite unambiguous evidence that carbon dioxide is warming the planet and disrupting ecosystems around the globe.

In 2000, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) laid out projections of how greenhouse gas emissions were likely to evolve during the twenty-first century due to economic, demographic, and technological changes. The high-end scenario combined rapid economic growth and globalization with intensive fossil fuel use and was used as the IPCC’s upper limit for estimates of future climate change in its recent 2007 report. Yet this upper-limit projection predicted annual emissions growth of only 2.3 percent between 2000 and 2010—far less than the 3.1 percent annual increase observed so far this century. With CO2 emissions currently exceeding the worst-case scenario, we can expect that temperature and sea level rise will likely do the same.

Five countries are responsible for over half of fossil-fuel-related CO2 emissions, and the United States and China alone account for more than a third. The United States has been the world’s largest emitter for over a century, releasing 1.66 GtC in 2006, or 19.8 percent of global emissions. It is now closely followed by China, where growth in emissions has been driven by a rapid increase in coal consumption—China is currently opening an average of two coal-fired power plants a week. Emissions in China have more than doubled since 1990, reaching 1.48 GtC in 2006, or 17.7 percent of the world total. Analysts expect that China will overtake the United States to become the world’s largest emitter before 2009.

The other countries in the top five are Russia, India, and Japan, respectively accounting for 5.2, 4.7, and 4.1 percent of global CO2 emissions. (See figure.) Of these, India has had the fastest growth in emissions, which have tripled since 1981. The increase in emissions from India and China reflects the rapid industrialization and economic growth currently happening throughout Asia. Since 2000, carbon dioxide emissions in Asia have grown five times faster than emissions in the rest of the world. The region, which produced less then 10 percent of global emissions in 1970, now accounts for almost a third of the world total.

EDIT

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/CO2/2008.htm

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Just wait

As the oceans get warmer (and there is irrefutable evidence that they are getting warmer,) large deposits of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate">methane clathrate will start to melt, dumping methane into the atmosphere. As a greenhouse gas, methane is more than 60 times worse that carbon dioxide. Two mass extinctions -- the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum">Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum -- have been linked to terrestrial melts of methane clathrate.

[hatrack]

2. And let's not forget the pleasures of taking in the sunset over a beautiful green Canfield Ocean!

Cabo like you've never experienced it before!!

:toast: