Global CO2 Emissions Rose by Nearly 2 Percent in 2008

Despite a global recession, carbon dioxide emissions rose by 1.94 percent in 2008 to 31.5 billion tons, the 10th straight year of significant increases, according to the German renewable energy institute, IWR. The institute calculated the increase using official government figures, noting that CO2 emissions have risen by 40 percent since 1990 — the year against which emissions reductions were to be measured for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gases. “Kyoto is not working out,” said IWR Managing Director Norbert Allnoch, who called on countries with high CO2 emissions to agree to proportionately high investments in renewable energy. Meanwhile, Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N.’s Climate Change Secretariat, said that “time is running out” to lay the groundwork for a successful meeting in Copenhagen this December to draft a successor treaty to Kyoto. Speaking to delegates in Bonn who have gathered to forge a draft text for the Copenhagen summit, de Boer said the Bonn conclave has an “enormous amount of work to do” to pare down a draft text that has burgeoned from 50 to 200 pages.