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| Carbon emissions show sharp rise |
| 2006-11-28 |
| The rise in humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide has accelerated sharply, according to a new analysis. The Global Carbon Project says that emissions were rising by less than 1% annually up to the year 2000, but are now rising at 2.5% per year. It says the acceleration comes mainly from a rise in charcoal consumption and a lack of new energy efficiency gains. If you read further you'll find that's a very interesting porky. The global research network released its latest analysis at a scientific meeting in Australia. Dr Mike Rapauch of the the Australian government's research organisation CSIRO, who co-chairs the Global Carbon Project, told delegates that 7.9 billion tonnes (gigatonnes, Gt) of carbon passed into the atmosphere last year; in 2000, the figure was 6.8Gt. From 2000 to 2005, the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions was more than 2.5% per year, whereas in the 1990s it was less than 1% per year," he said. That's around the time countries started implementing Kyoto. The finding parallels figures released earlier this month by the World Meterorological Organisation showing that the rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 had accelerated in the last few years. The Global Carbon Project draws its data from a wide range of sources, including measurements of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and studies on fossil fuel use. From that data, researchers have extracted two trends which they believe explain the sharp upturn found around the year 2000. This is the interesting bit. "There has been a change in the trend regarding fossil fuel intensity, which is basically the amount of carbon you need to burn for a given unit of wealth," explained Corinne Le Quere, a Global Carbon Project member who holds posts at the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey. "From about 1970 the intensity decreased - we became more efficient at using energy - but we've been getting slightly worse since the year 2000," she told the BBC News website. Slightly worse? This is an unprecedented change in a stable long term trend. The decrease in energy input per unit of GDP has been a steady 0.6% per annum for a long time, then suddenly we start getting an increase in energy input for each unit (dollar) at the time governments are spending billions promoting energy savings and efficiency. Something very major has happened to send the decreasing energy consumption trend into reverse and that something is Kyoto. We have discussed before how Kyoto drives energy intensive industries out of energy efficient countries and into energy inefficient countries. For example China and India use 50% more energy to produce a ton of steel than do Japan or Germany. At the recent United Nations climate summit in Nairobi, a number of delegations, including those of Britain, Australia and the US ... that's because Oz and USA didn't sign Kyoto. The UK is a special case because of onetime gains from switching from coal to gas) ... pointed out that they had managed to grow their economies without significant increases in carbon emissions. I wait with anticipation for all the Kyoto advocates to finally admit Kyoto has made the CO2 problem a whole lot worse. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #3 Phil_b: "Kyoto drives energy intensive industries out of energy efficient countries and into energy inefficient countries." For years I've been trying to explain to friends and colleagues that Kyoto is not an environmental protection treaty but a wealth redistribution treaty. It can't be done: it is like telling the faithful that God does not exist. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-11-28 08:36 |
| #2 But how could this be? A feel-good idea the left is pushing is now claimed to cause more problems? But it also creates more jobs in China ... but then it would also reduce jobs in those countries trying to abide by Kyoto... I need a new irony meter. With a bigger scale. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2006-11-28 06:35 |
| #1 Methinks its called Democrats winning the Congress in 2006 = Gubmint covertly to take over everyone's $$$ bottom-line while declaring the contrary. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-11-28 00:42 |