Thaindian News

London, Sep 22 (IANS) Carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming, rose 45 percent between 1990 and 2010, reaching an all-time high of 33 billion tonnes in 2010, says a report.

During this period, CO2 emissions in the European Union (EU) and Russia decreased by seven percent and 28 percent, respectively, while emissions in the US increased by five percent and Japan’s emissions remained more or less constant.

These figures were published in the report prepared by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, according to a statement.

Increased energy efficiency, the growing contribution of renewable energy, besides nuclear energy, were not compensating for the rampaging demand for power and transport, which was the strongest in developing countries, it said.

The CO2 emission increase was significant even when compared to 2008, when global CO2 emissions were at their highest before the global financial crisis.

Most major economies contributed to this increase, led by China, the US and India with increases of 10, four and nine percent respectively.

Industrialised countries were likely to meet the collective Kyoto target of a 5.2 percent reduction of emissions by 2012 as a group, thanks to their cutting down on emissions in the early 1990s and more recent reductions due to the 2008-09 recession, it said.

The industrialised countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and the US, in 1990, caused about two-thirds of global CO2 emissions. Their share of global emissions had now fallen to less than half the global total.