A recent report titled, “Long-term trend in global CO2 emissions," indicates that worldwide discharges of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is considered to be an important reason for global warming has gone up by 45% between the period 1990 and 2010 and attained the maximum level of 33 Bt in 2010.
The report prepared by Joint Research Center of European Commission and Environmental Assessment Agency of PBL Netherlands indicates that the increased level of renewable energy usage, adaptation to energy efficiency and use of nuclear energy are not able to counterbalance for the growing demand for energy in transportation and power sectors globally.
The report, which utilized the recent statistics on usage of energy and other activities and outcomes from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) establishes that large level of dissimilarities exist between industrialized nations. It found that in the period between 1990-2010 the carbon emission levels in Russia and E-27 countries have decreased by 28% and 7% respectively while in the same period the emission levels at the USA has increased by 5% and Japan maintained more or less the constant level. The industrialized countries and the USA, which have signed the Kyoto Protocol, were causing around two-thirds of carbon emissions of the world in 1990 and their present emissions levels have come down to less than the half of worldwide emission level. The report indicates that the present increase has taken place despite the collective effort of industrialized countries in reducing the emission levels.
It attributes the recovery from recession, upcoming new economies and the growth of developing countries as reasons for the increase of 5.8% in CO2 emission levels from 2009 and 2010. The increase is mainly caused by countries such as China, USA, India and other EU-27 countries with 10%, 4%, 9% and 3% increase respectively. It finds global power generation and transport segments contribute 40% and 15% respectively towards emission levels and growing at 2.5% and 5% levels every year.
The reports mentions the efforts of industrialized countries in the use of energy sources mix such as renewable energy sources, nuclear energy and natural gas to bring down their dependence on coal and oil. It finds that the energy mix efforts do not balance the growing demand for power and transport sectors and suggests for mitigation efforts in those sectors to bring down the level of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions suggested under Cancún agreements, the Bali Action Plan and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/