Global Carbon Levels Spiraling

Global Carbon Levels Spiraling

May 22 - USA TODAY

Warnings about global warming may not be dire enough, according to a climate study that describes a runaway-train acceleration of industrial carbon dioxide emissions.

Fueled by rapid growth in coal-reliant China, rates of carbon dioxide emission from industrial sources increased from 2000 to 2004 "at a rate that is over three times the rate during the 1990s," says a report released by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Carbon dioxide, released when coal, oil and natural gas burn, is a major greenhouse gas, so named because it absorbs the sun's heat in the atmosphere.

"We have had rapid economic growth worldwide powered on traditional carbon-emitting sources," says study author Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's branch in Stanford, Calif.

The study compared Energy Department carbon dioxide emissions numbers with economic growth figures from the International Monetary Fund and United Nations. The figures show that "carbon intensity," roughly the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to produce something in an economy, dropped worldwide after 1980. It shot up after 2000 in high-growth China and stalled elsewhere.

"The report is saying that if you wonder what side of global warming's effects -- droughts, warming and others -- we are going to get, a little or a lot, we are going to get a lot," says Angela Anderson of the Washington, D.C.-based National Environmental Trust.

In February, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted a 7.2-degree rise in surface temperatures by 2100 if the world pursues growth reliant on fossil fuels, producing more severe droughts, floods and heat waves. The study's real-world carbon dioxide emissions rate exceeds the panel's assumptions.

Carbon dioxide is responsible for about half of the 1-degree increase in average surface temperatures attributable to human activities in the past century, the climate change panel says.

Countries are using more energy, and "no region is decarbonising its energy supply," the study says.

"This should serve as a notice to the global community that renewed and stronger efforts are necessary in this political, economic and scientific milieu," says Robert Andres of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratory, who was not part of the study.

The results show that the world is burning more coal than ever. "Coal is abundant and cheap but much dirtier than other fossil fuels," Field says.