Carbon Tally Shows Growing Global Problem

World summary of emissions reveals continuing gains.

Global carbon emissions are now growing by 3.2% a year, according to results presented at an Earth science conference in Beijing on 9 November. That's four times higher than the average annual growth of 0.8% from 1990-99.

"We are not on any of the stabilization paths," says Michael Raupach, a carbon-cycle scientist with Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Canberra, who presented the Global Carbon Project results.

The result is not particularly surprising — there have been many reports of countries missing their national emissions targets. But the tally, using data up to 2005, drives home how far away we are from projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the emissions levels needed to prevent damaging climate change.