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Annual carbon budget: We’re all doomed

industrial air pollution.jpgThe latest global carbon budget numbers are just out, and they make interesting, if slightly depressing, reading. (Global Carbon Project site – will be updated at midnight)

Most striking is that, despite years of effort, carbon dioxide emissions are increasing at an alarming rate of 3.5% a year– faster than the 2.7% predicted by the IPCC in their worst case scenario, and miles ahead of the 0.9% annual rise in the 1990s. Worst still, current measures have been based on a middle-ground IPCC scenario. Pep Candell from the Global Carbon Budget told me that this was “astonishing”.

For the first time, we have hit 10 billion tonnes of carbon emitted annually.

The other thing to note is that China and India are galumphing their way up the table of biggest carbon dioxide emitters. Ten years ago the top four were: USA, China, Russia, Japan. Today that list reads: China, USA, Russia, India – and I am assured by Candell that next year India will have jumped into third place.

This is a worry – when the Kyoto Protocol was first talked about, the countries of the developing developed world were overwhelmingly the highest emitters of carbon dioxide. But in the meantime, whilst decisions were made, details argued out and paperwork signed, the developing world has taken pole position.

China has, since 2002, jumped from being responsible for 14% of the global carbon dioxide emissions, to 21%. At the same time the US has been hovering at around 20%.

Slightly good news is that our natural saviours – the oceans, forests and soil, are still doing a sterling job. In 1959, natural sinks removed just over 50% of the carbon dioxide man emitted. And today, they do the same – gobble up just over half. The efficiency of these natural sinks has dropped by about 5% in the intervening years, which isn’t ideal, but that the overall news is not disastrous.

Response to the news – which will be officially announced tomorrow – from the media is widespread. It’s a ‘reality check’ according to the Daily Green; Zee News runs with the rise of India in the emission charts; while other reports tell it like it is: carbon dioxide emissions still rising.

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    Liese Coulter said:

    While natural sinks have decreased, it was expected that as concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere rose the sinks would absorb more. According to the Global Carbon Project, for every ton of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere 50 years ago, natural sinks removed 600 kg. Currently, the sinks are removing only 550 kg and this amount is falling. It really does add yet another diminishing dimention to the carbon balence.

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    Liese Coulter said:

    I was saddened to see the ‘we are all doomed’ headline on this article. We are in deep trouble, we need urgent action and we certainly need leadership, but “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” In the current issue of The Quarterly Essay, Tim Flannery makes a concise appraisal of the issues and suggests some ways out from under The Doom.

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