Global carbon dioxide emissions increased by 45 percent between 1990 and 2010, reaching a record high 33 billion tons last year, according to a report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center. The report said that increased energy efficiency, renewable energy, and nuclear power are not compensating for a surge in emissions from developing countries, most notably China — with a 257 percent increase in CO2 emissions from 1990 to 210 — and India, whose emissions increased by 180 percent. By contrast, the European Union’s emissions declined by 7 percent from 1990 to 2010, and Russia’s dropped 27 percent. U.S. emissions increased by 5 percent from 1990 to 2010. After a slowdown in CO2 emissions at the height of the recession in 2008 and 2009, global emissions saw a record-breaking increase of 5.8 percent from 2009 to 2010, the report said. Meanwhile, a study in the journal Climate Change Letters said that even if average global temperature increases can be held to 2 degrees C (3.5 F) this century — an increasingly unlikely prospect — 70 to 80 percent of the globe’s land surface will experience summertime temperatures that exceed observed historical extremes in at least half of all years.
CO2 Emissions Soared 45 Percent from 1990 to 2010, Report Says
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