Carbon emissions at record

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Carbon dioxide emissions reached a record level of 33 billion tons, a report by EU’s Joint Research Center says.

Global carbon dioxide emissions increased by 45 percent between 1990 and 2010, reaching an all-time high of 33 billion tons, according to a new report by the EU’s Joint Research Centre, or JRC.

The report on long-term trends in global CO2 emissions, prepared by the JRC’s Institute for Environment and Sustainability and the Netherlands’ Environmental Assessment Agency and published Wednesday, showed that increased energy efficiency, nuclear energy and the growing contribution of renewable energy were not compensating for the globally increasing demand for power and transportation, which is strongest in developing countries.

Carbon dioxide emissions rose by a record rate of 5.8 percent on global levels in 2009 and 2010, mostly due to the ongoing growth in emerging economies and recovery of advanced countries from the 2008 crisis, the report said. “Most major economies contributed to this increase, including China, the U.S., India and member states of the European Union.” Continued growth in emerging economies and economic recovery by industrialized countries were the main reasons for the record amount of emissions, the report said.

The report’s findings were based on figures from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, JRC said on its website