From the European Commission Joint Research Centre
Global CO2 emissions continue to increase
Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main cause of global warming – increased by 3% last year, reaching an all-time high of 34 billion tonnes in 2011. In China, the world’s most populous country, average emissions of CO2 increased by 9% to 7.2 tonnes per capita.
China is now within the range of 6 to 19 tonnes per capita emissions of the major industrialised countries. In the European Union, CO2 emissions dropped by 3% to 7.5 tonnes per capita. The United States remain one of the largest emitters of CO2, with 17.3 tones per capita, despite a decline due to the recession in 2008-2009, high oil prices and an increased share of natural gas. These are the main findings of the annual report ‘Trends in global CO2 emissions’, released today by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL).
Based on recent results from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) and latest statistics on energy use and relevant activities such as gas flaring and cement production, the report shows that global CO2 emissions continued to grow in 2011, despite reductions in OECD countries. Weak economic conditions, a mild winter, and energy savings stimulated by high oil prices led to a decrease of 3% in CO2 emissions in the European Union and of 2% in both the United States and Japan. Emissions from OECD countries now account for only one third of global CO2 emissions – the same share as that of China and India combined, where emissions increased by 9% and 6% respectively in 2011. Economic growth in China led to significant increases in fossil fuel consumption driven by construction and infrastructure expansion. The growth in cement and steel production caused China’s domestic coal consumption to increase by 9.7%.
The 3% increase in global CO2 emissions in 2011 is above the past decade’s average annual increase of 2.7%, with a decrease in 2008 and a surge of 5% in 2010. The top emitters contributing to the 34 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted globally in 2011 are: China (29%), the United States (16%), the European Union (11%), India (6%), the Russian Federation (5%) and Japan (4%).
Cumulative CO2 emissions call for action
An estimated cumulative global total of 420 billion tonnes of CO2 were emitted between 2000 and 2011 due to human activities, including deforestation. Scientific literature suggests that limiting the rise in average global temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels – the target internationally adopted in UN climate negotiations – is possible only if cumulative CO2 emissions in the period 2000-2050 do not exceed 1 000 to 1 500 billion tonnes. If the current global trend of increasing CO2 emissions continues, cumulative emissions will surpass this limit within the next two decades.
Fortunately, this trend is being mitigated by the expansion of renewable energy supplies, especially solar and wind energy and biofuels. The global share of these so-called modern renewables, which exclude hydropower, is growing at an accelerated speed and quadrupled from 1992 to 2011. This potentially represents about 0.8 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided as a result of using renewable energy supplies in 2011, which is close to Germany’s total CO2 emissions in 2011.
Background information
PBL – the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
PBL is the Netherlands’ national institute for strategic policy analysis in the fields of environment, nature and spatial planning. It contributes to improving the quality of political and administrative decision making by conducting outlook studies, analyses and evaluations in which an integrated approach is considered paramount. Policy relevance is the prime concern in all PBL studies, for which independent and scientifically sound research is carried out on a solicited and unsolicited basis.
The Joint Research Centre (JRC)
As the Commission’s in-house science service, the Joint Research Centre’s mission is to provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support throughout the whole policy cycle. Working in close cooperation with policy Directorates-General, the JRC addresses key societal challenges while stimulating innovation through developing new methods, tools and standards, and sharing its know-how with the Member States, the scientific community and international partners. Key policy areas include: environment and climate change; energy and transport; agriculture and food security; health and consumer protection; information society and digital agenda; safety and security, including nuclear; all supported through a cross-cutting and multidisciplinary approach.
EDGAR – Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research
The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) uses the latest scientific information and data from international statistics on energy production and consumption, industrial manufacturing, agricultural production, waste treatment/disposal and the burning of biomass, in order to model emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants for all countries of the world in a comparable and consistent manner. EDGAR (version 4.2) is also unique in its provision of historical emissions data for 20 years prior to 1990, the reference year for the Kyoto protocol. Emissions are publicly available through the EDGAR website, hosted by the JRC.
Links:
“Trends in global CO2 emissions” report: http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/CO2REPORT2012.pdf
EDGAR website: http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu
EDGAR website: http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu
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And still global average temperatures show trivial (if any) increases for over a decade now:
http://tinyurl.com/7zwa2ne
So what?
Unless you believe in little green fairies in the bottom of the garden of course.
Kindest Regards
Such reports are always interesting to read, because they always speak about million and billions of tons of CO2. That sounds an awful lot to most people, since most people have no clue about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the ration of it compared to all other gasses and components, let alone what a PPM is. It’s a classic misinformation, and of course the EUSSR is behind this. Not only hate they rising China and India but also all the people in Europe, not mention freedom and liberty. I wonder how long it’ll take for the unelected Eurocrats in Brussels (all the EU “commissioners” -the German term for them is, quite fittingly I must say, “commissars”- are appointed a close clique of power hungry neo-fascists, rather than elected by the people) to put people on trial for being skeptical of the IPCC version of the story. You can already get dragged into court in Europe for saying your opinion when it’s not politically correct and following what our so called leaders want you to think.
Groan. One begged question after another. Assumptions chasing each others’ tails. Thinking only a bureaucrat could love.
Can I get this straight? Which is it?
1. Global CO2 levels are still rising rapidly. The temperature graph is flat. Therefore the CO2 is not causing warming.
2. The use of shale oil has reduced the amount of CO2 being produced in the USA at least. This explains why the temp graph is “at” ( “at” for AGW purposes) Hansen’s and IPCC “best case” scenario.
Lot of people sitting in offices collating inaccurate data, wasting time, money and effort in pretending they are doing something useful. Just noted in EU regulations that burning wastes eg in district heating boilers is exempt. European figures are fiddled. Not that it matters. It is a game of politics.
Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main cause of global warming – increased…
On what basis are they making such an assertion?
Computer models that start with that assumption.
“Cumulative CO2 emissions call for action.”
Applause? Awards?
‘1. Global CO2 levels are still rising rapidly. The temperature graph is flat. Therefore the CO2 is not causing warming.’
Ask people who post ‘flat’ temperature plots of 2002-2012 if they could please include error bars. Point out that if you plot the data since 2008 you can show steep warming. That’s more recent, so warming has started again, right?
So which is it? Cooling, stasis, or warming? It’s a statistical crapshoot to look at four years of data, just as it is with ten years of data. The error bars for the regressions show this – but they’re apparently too inconvenient for some people’s narratives (‘global warming has stopped’). No – those temperature data, including from 2002-2012, are consistent with ongoing warming.
Face it ladies and gentlemen–the plants are lovin’ it!
So, who are the bureaucrats that hate all these life-giving, food-providing, shelter-contributing plants?
Let them assemble for an honest eduction.
Surely the 1st paragraph should commence with ” ….. (CO2) – the alleged main cause of global warming etc….
Soos says:
July 19, 2012 at 5:50 pm
No – those temperature data, including from 2002-2012, are consistent with ongoing warming.
I do not agree. Different data sets are different. But all show no or extremely little warming over the last 10 to 15 years. For details, see below.
On all data sets, the different times for a slope that is flat for all practical purposes range from 10 years and 9 months to 15 years and 7 months. Following is the longest period of time (above 10 years) where each of the data sets is more or less flat. (*For any positive slope, the exponent is no larger than 10^-5, except UAH which is 0.0018436 per year or 0.18/century up to June. So while it is not flat, the slope is not statistically significant either.)
1. UAH: since October 2001 or 10 years, 9 months (goes to June, but note * above)
2. GISS: since May 2001 or 11 years, 2 months (goes to June)
3. Combination of the above 4: since October 2000 or 11 years, 6 months (goes to March) (Hadcrut3 is SLOW!!)
4. HadCrut3: since January 1997 or 15 years, 3 months (goes to March)
5. Sea surface temperatures: since January 1997 or 15 years, 6 months (goes to June)
6. RSS: since December 1996 or 15 years, 7 months (goes to June)
7. Hadcrut4: since December 2000 or 11 years, 7 months (goes to June using GISS. See below.)
See the graph below to show it all for #1 to #6.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001.33/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.9/trend/plot/wti/from:2000.75/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/trend/plot/uah/from:2001.75/trend
For #7: Hadcrut4 only goes to December 2010 so what I did was get the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the end of December 2010. Then I got the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the present. The DIFFERENCE in slope was that the slope was 0.0045 lower for the total period. The positive slope for Hadcrut4 was 0.0041 from December 2000. So IF Hadcrut4 were totally up to date, and IF it then were to trend like GISS, I conclude it would show no slope for at least 11 years and 7 months going back to December 2000. (By the way, doing the same thing with Hadcrut3 gives the same end result, but GISS comes out much sooner each month.) See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/to:2011/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/trend
Roll on the cold snap. The only thing that’s going to knock this nonsense down is year after year of cold. I’m sorry for it, but nothing else is going to kill this AGW rubbish, they just keep ploughing on, ignorning all facts and all reasoning, just screaming their message of doom.
Facts and reasoning and real science will not reach all people out there (not unless the MSM WAKES UP), but the onset of cold years WILL. Bring it on, I say.
I see these sort of data and I wonder, how do they measure that? I suspect it is a guesstimate.
“RockyRoad says:
July 19, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Face it ladies and gentlemen–the plants are lovin’ it!
So, who are the bureaucrats that hate all these life-giving, food-providing, shelter-contributing plants?”
Even the warmists have found that out and even decided to admit it 🙂
‘Abrupt increase’ in CO2 absorption slowed global warming
Scientists have discovered an “abrupt increase” since 1988 in the uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) by the land biosphere, which comprises all of the planet’s plant and animal ecosystems.
The findings do not contradict existing science about global warming, but rather explain how much CO2 is absorbed by plants and animals, with some of the CO2 then being passed from plants into the land.
A report into the findings says the increase in uptake is “a big number”, about one billion tonnes of carbon per year
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/weather/news/article.cfm?c_id=10&objectid=10818936
I find it odd the the US is singled out in this when China exceeds the US CO2 by a large margin and the US contribution of CO2 has DECREASED, while China, India, and the EU has INCREASED. You would think they would try to throw the US a bone, given that we have decreased our CO2 output.
Who’s #1? Canada, probably? Crazy that the US isn’t first in per capita emissions anymore.
Ally E. says:
July 19, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Roll on the cold snap. The only thing that’s going to knock this nonsense down is year after year of cold. I’m sorry for it, but nothing else is going to kill this AGW rubbish, they just keep ploughing on, ignorning all facts and all reasoning, just screaming their message of doom…..
________________________________
Several nasty snow storms all over the USA the last week of October would do the trick here in the USA
“Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main cause of global warming – “[…]
False. Looks like UHI is the main culprit, not *global* warming but in local urban warming where the thermometers have been placed as cities and airports have grown in recent decades and therefore get warmer over time, thus the warming trend, very locally but insignificant globally. The rest is mostly faulty warming biased homogeneous adjustments in the GHCN dataset… the mother of most climate surface temperature datasets and algorithms.
I wonder what the per capita rate of decrease of CO2 production is in the US and China. Given that we are ahead of the curve on CO2 decline what the hell is the beef, and what the hell is the point in creating data that includes nose counts? Does anyone really believe there is useful correlation between the population of China and the population of the US?
So, it is ultimately about redistribution of wealth and CO2 in the end ?
Get out you wallet, or VOTE!
The article at the top from the ECJRC is totally misleading when it claims that “Scientific literature suggests that limiting the rise in average global temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels – the target internationally adopted in UN climate negotiations – is possible only if cumulative CO2 emissions in the period 2000-2050 do not exceed 1 000 to 1 500 billion tonnes.”
The only “scientific [sic] literature” claiming this nonsense is that in Nature in 2009, to which I submitted a Brief Communication on 15th June 2009, pointing out that its issue of 30 April 2009, with no fewer than nine articles claiming that it is not the [net] atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (i.e. [CO2]) that is responsible for rising global mean temperature (GMT), as asserted by the IPCC, but the total cumulative volume of GROSS anthropogenic emissions of CO2. I pointed out that this approach implied there are and have been no uptakes of CO2 by the global biospheres, both oceanic and terrestrial.
My rejection note from Nature’s Michael White stated the articles had “implicitly” taken such absorptions into account. In a second Brief Communication I responded as follows showing this not to be the case, but with the same result, rejection by Dr White (8th July 2009).
Here is an extract from my Note to Nature:
Nature’s leading article “Time to Act” (30 April 2009)8 supports the claim in Meinshausen et al. and the other 8 articles in that issue that it is total cumulative or annual emissions which determine climate change, not the atmospheric concentration that emerges after taking into account net uptakes of carbon: “The 500 billion tonnes of carbon that humans have added to the atmosphere lie heavily on the world, and the burden swells by at least 9 billion tonnes a year (sic)” (p.1077), even though the actual increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 (i.e. [CO2]) recorded at Mauna Loa between May 2008 and May 2009 was only 1.68 parts per million by volume (ppm), equivalent to 3.56 billion tonnes of carbon (GtC), while the total increase in the atmospheric concentration since the pre-industrial era is only from 280 ppm to 390 ppm (May 2009). That 110 ppm equates to 233.2 GtC, somewhat less than the 500 GtC from which Nature’s editor White claims its articles had already “implicitly” subtracted the “net carbon uptakes”.
So “implicit” accounting for net carbon uptakes apparently raises what was the actual net increase in CO2 at Mauna Loa from 3.56 GtC from May 2008 to April 2009 to Nature’s “at least 9 GtC a year”.
The real cause for concern however is the emission reduction policies of the EU, Australia and the USA et al. based on Nature’s junk science aiming for emissions to be reduced by at least by 88% from the 2005 level by 2050. If implemented globally, this implies that by 2050 global emissions (mainly from burning fossil fuels) will be reduced to 1.16 GtC (including reductions in land use change), far below the global biospheric net uptakes of CO2, at 4.3 GtC in 2005, an El Niño year, and 6 GtC in 2006 (La Niña).
Ironically, and contrary to the beliefs of Nature and the EU’s Research Centre above, there is an alternative to reducing total emissions below the current level of natural net
uptakes of carbon, and that is to raise the net carbon uptakes (which have averaged
56% of total emissions since 1958, Knorr 2009), of which the terrestrial component rose from an average of 1.24 GtC in 1960 to 1969 to 2.32 GtC in 1998–2007) to say 80% of the
ongoing rising level of emissions. That would imply raising food availability across the
globe, a demonstrably more equitable and cost-effective solution than the geo-engineering solutions, like creating stratospheric sunshades, that Nature’s articles and editorial of April 30, 2009 favoured. Why are Nature, its authors, and the EU opposed to increasing world food supply?
PS My full account of my exchanges with Nature is in Energy & Environment • Vol. 20, No. 7, 2009, available at my website http://www.timcurtin.com.
It seems more like global warming stopped at the end of last century and Earth started cooling from around 2001.
The linear trend since 2001 is now near -0.8°C (-1.44°F) per century.
CO2 concentration in the atmosphere may, or may not, keep on rising at Mauna Loa.
“Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main cause of global warming…”
Enough said. How about dem Yankees?
Does anyone have the total CO2 numbers for this time period? Both natural and man made. It would be nice to know. We used to account for 4-5% of the CO2 (~6 gigatons out of 180-200). I would like to know are we now 34 out of 214? 234? After all it is the total amount that we should all be scared of (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean?).