"hanson" wrote Nothing but Ignorance

Meanwhile...

Recent CO2 rises exceed worst-case scenarios
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- Catherine Brahic - 22:00 21 May 2007 - NewScientist.com news service


The world's recent carbon dioxide emissions are growing more rapidly than
even
the worst-case climate scenario used by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate
Change, say researchers.

The team, led by Michael Raupach of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific
and
Industrial Research Organisation, looked at the growth of CO2 emissions and
found that emissions growth suddenly accelerated in 2000. During the 1990s,
emissions grew by 1.1% per year on average, but the number shot up to 3.3%
between 2000 and 2004, when the study ended.

When they compared the recent emissions trend to those the UN-backed IPCC
drew
up as its "worst case scenario", the team found the reality was at least as
bad,
if not worse.

The team then examined the changes between 1980 and 2004 in factors such as
population, economic growth, energy efficiency and carbon efficiency (the
amount
used per unit of GDP). From this, they were able to determine why CO2
emissions
accelerated after 2000.

They concluded that the rise in CO2 emissions is not due to a growth in
global
population, but a reduction in global efficiency. "We are not getting more
efficient at using CO2 in the way we projected," explains co-author Corinne
Le
Quéré from the University of East Anglia in the UK.

....