Solamon Renewable Energy

Global carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere continue to increase, reaching an all-time high of 34 billion tonnes, according to a study for the year 2011.

The said results were published in the yearly “Trends in Global CO2 emissions” report, released by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. Their data came from the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR).

According to the report, there is a significant decrease in emission for countries belonging to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The 34 member countries account for around one third of the emissions worldwide and is equal to the combine emission share of India and China. In total, the carbon dioxide emissions globally increased by 3%, reaching a historic level of 34 billion tons.

The three percent emission increase in 2011 exceeds the last decade’s average yearly increase of 2.7%. However, carbon dioxide emissions from Japan and US has decreased by around 2% owing to mild winters, generally weak economic states and high oil prices, but the two nations still remain in the top emitter spots along with China, EU, India and Russia.

China has registered the greatest increase in emission with 7.2 tons per capita or 9%, bringing an average Chinese carbon footprint on the level of an average European’s.

Meanwhile the US has reduced its emission by 2% due to high oil prices and high interest in natural gas, though it is still the highest emitter with 17.3 tonnes per capita.

Japan and the European Union has also clocked a 2% and 3% decrease in their respective emissions while India’s increased by 6%.

As of now, the official figures on carbon emissions announced this week are based on where fossil fuels were burned but a committee report from UK suggested that it also include in the nation’s calculation the energy expended on the export and import of goods.

The UN has implemented a goal of reducing global warming to 3.6F by the year 2050, which was believed by scientists as possible as long as the total carbon dioxide emissions from 2000 to 2050 would not go over the 1000-1500 billion tons threshold. That limit should be observed in order for us to control the mean increase in worldwide temperature or the cumulative emissions will exceed the limit within a mere 20 years.