Growth in the global carbon budget

Updated global carbon budget released

Today the new Global Carbon Budget was launched simultaneously by Global Carbon Project co-chair Michael Raupach in France at the Paris Observatory, and in the USA at Capitol Hill, Washington by GCP Executive Director Pep Canadell.

The Global Carbon Project posted the most recent figures for the worlds' carbon budget, a key to understanding the balance of carbon added to the atmosphere, the underpinning of human induced climate change. Despite the increasing international sense of urgency, the growth rate of emissions continued to speed up, bringing the atmospheric CO₂ concentration to 383 parts per million (ppm) in 2007.

Anthropogenic CO₂ emissions have been growing about four times faster since 2000 than during the previous decade, despite efforts to curb emissions in a number of Kyoto Protocol signatory countries. Emissions from the combustion of fossil fuel and land use change reached 10 billion tones of carbon in 2007. Natural CO₂ sinks are growing but slower than the atmospheric CO₂ growth, which has been increasing at 2 ppm since 2000 or 33% faster than the previous 20 years.

Dr. Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project said "This new update of the carbon budget shows the acceleration of both CO₂ emissions and atmospheric accumulation are unprecedented and most astonishing during a decade of intense international developments to address climate change."

Emissions growth for 2000-2007 was above even the most fossil fuel intensive scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (SRES-IPCC). While the developing nations of China and India continue to increase emissions, China has improved the carbon intensity of their economy since 2005, based on data from the National Energy Administration in China.