Six Degree Global Temperature Rise Forecast

According to a new study, global temperatures are on track to rise six degrees Centigrade by the end of 2009.  Carbon dioxide emissions have increased 29 per cent over the past ten years and – even taking the recession into account – two per cent of these emissions have been created over the past 12 months alone.  And its China that can be blamed for the majority of this two per cent, the study states.

The release of this significant new climate change study underlines the need for the world to forge an effective new climate change deal in Copenhagen in one month’s time.  China – along with the US – has pledged to unveil new emission reduction goals within the same timeframe as the Copenhagen talks.  As far as the US is concerned, President Obama has indicated that its new national greenhouse gas emissions policy will ‘rally the world’.

Global CO2 Emissions

The fact that global CO2 emissions have carried on soaring during difficult economic times has surprised the scientific world, but China’s flourishing economy is much to blame, according to the new report.  “The growth in emissions since 2000 is almost entirely driven by the growth in China”, the University of East Anglia’s Corinne Le Quere – who headed the report – explains.  “It's China and India and all the developing countries together.”

A number of processes are responsible for CO2 emissions, including industrial fossil fuel burning where substances like coal are drawn on as raw materials.  Cement production – a process especially prevalent in China – is another driver.  Between 2007 and 2008, global emissions increased by an additional 671 million tons, and close-to 75 per cent of these emanated out of China.  2008’s increase in CO2 emissions fell slightly below the average for the past decade and, for 2009, a drop of close to three per cent is forecast as a result of economic conditions, even taking China into account.  In terms of per capita emissions, the US remains in pole position, since it creates approximately 20 annual tons of CO2 for each resident (compare this to the global average of 5.3 tons, or China’s national per capita figure of 5.8 tons). 

Global Temperature Rises

2008 US CO2 emissions decreased three per cent – a drop equivalent to approximately 192m tons of CO2 – and, across the EU, the decrease was over one per cent.  But despite any positivity that these figures might suggest, the future picture is far from rosy in terms of global temperature rises, Le Quere and the other scientists involved in the report stress. “There's a very clear gap between the path we are on and the path we should be on if the goal is to limit global warming to two degrees”, she comments. 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Gregg Marland – another of those behind the production of the study – adds that the total volume of CO2 emissions produced since 1982 as a result of industrial processes is over 715 trillion tons.  This is equivalent to the total volume of emissions produced for all years prior to 1982.  As far as China is concerned, its CO2 emissions have increased two-fold over the past eight years, and the country’s ever-increasing number of new fossil fuel plants is strongly linked to this growth.  However, power plants are not entirely to blame – emissions associated with export orders to countries like the US are also partially responsible, the report concludes.