This is nap time for the Flat Earth Society. Just go play quietly in the corner.
For those, however, who don't feel like drinking the Exxon Kool Aid, there's word that we're actually emitting more CO2 faster today than just a few years back - a lot more. Now, it's not me. I'm cutting my emissions a lot. That means it has to be you. So, I'll say it right now, shame on you.
It seems our mankind is actually slipping backwards on GHG emissions. A report in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, indicates that greenhouse gas emissions rose substantially during the 2000-2004, much faster than what was assumed by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in coming to the findings in their recent reports.
How much? According to the report in The Guardian, GHGs went up 1.1% annually during the 1990's. During the first four years of this decade, the annual rate of GHG increase shot up to 3.1%.
"The research noted a reversal of the trend towards greater energy efficiency and lower carbon working seen in the 1990s.
"'The trends relating energy to economic growth are definitely headed in the wrong direction,' said Chris Field, one of the authors of the report and director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology.
"'Despite the scientific consensus that carbon emissions are affecting the world's climate, we are not seeing evidence of progress in managing those emissions in either the developed or developing countries. In many parts of the world, we are going backwards.'
"The American, British, Australian and French scientists behind the study found that the acceleration of carbon dioxide emissions was greatest in the rapidly expanding economies of developing countries, particularly China.
"In 2004, 73% of the growth in global emissions came from developing economies, which comprise 80% of the world's population. However, when the scientists looked at total emissions for the year, they found developed countries, including the former Soviet Union, contributed about 60%."
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