Greenhouse gases near 39.6m tons in 2013
Smoke stacks and exhaust pipes around the world are blasting
greenhouse gas emissions to a new record annual high. They should break
39 million tons this year. But there is also some good news, a new study
published recently said.
The rate at which people are polluting the air may be levelling off.
In the West, emissions contributing to global warming dropped last
year. The United States pumped 3.7% less carbon dioxide into the air in
2012 than in the previous year; Europe 1.8% less.
Globally, greenhouse gases are being emitted at a slower rate this
year than they were last year, and in both years the climb in emissions
was less intense than in the past decade, said researchers at Britain's
East Anglia University. It's an improvement, but a drop in the bucket by
global emission standards.
Greenhouse gases are blowing into the atmosphere at rates 61% higher
than they were in 1990, the baseline year for the Kyoto Protocol. The
international agreement is designed to decrease emissions contributing
to global warming by holding its signees to reduction goals.
The vast majority of the world's nations have signed on to it.
The United States is not one of them. China is. But the world's
largest carbon emitter, which wrested the dubious title from the United
States in recent years, pumped 5.9% more into the atmosphere in 2012
than in the previous year. India contributed 7.7% more emissions in
2012.
Not only must the increase stop, the researchers said, but
industrialised nations must achieve a global reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions. Time is running out to stop the world from reaching a dreaded
global warming threshold.
The world is on a course with current emission levels to reach a rise
in global temperatures of two degrees Celsius or more and end up in the
worst climate change scenario issued by the UN panel on climate change.
The study includes a carbon atlas, which shows levels of pollution
emitted by each nation and their development over the past 50 years. In
2012, the largest contributors of greenhouse gases were China with 27%,
the United States with 14% and the European Union with 10%.
On an individual basis, China and the EU were at the same level, with
7.7 tons of carbon gas emitted per person per year. Americans still
polluted the most by far, with more than 17 tons of carbon gas emitted
per person in 2012.
CNN |