Carbon dioxide emissions reach record high

Neela Banerjee in the Los Angeles Times: Emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide reached an all-time high last year, further reducing the chances that the world could avoid a dangerous rise in global average temperature by 2020, according to the International Energy Agency, the energy analysis group for the world’s most industrialized states.

Global emissions of carbon-dioxide, or CO2, from fossil-fuel combustion hit a record high of 31.6 gigatonnes  in 2011, according to the IEA’s preliminary estimates, an increase of 1 Gt, or 3.2% from 2010. The burning of coal accounted for 45% of total energy-related CO2 emissions in 2011, followed by oil (35%) and natural gas (20%).

According to the vast majority of climatologists, the rapid rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of industrialization over the last 150 years has led to an increase in global average temperature by about 1 degree Celsius.

Scientists and the IEA contend that countries need to keep the global average temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in order to avoid profound damage to life on Earth, from water and food scarcity to rising sea levels to greater incidence and severity of disease.

Last year’s jump in carbon emissions sets the world even more firmly on the path to hurtle past a two-degree Celsius increase. “The new data provide further evidence that the door to a 2C trajectory is about to close,” said IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol...