- The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air jumped dramatically
in 2012, making it very unlikely that global warming can be limited to
another 2 degrees as many global leaders have hoped, new federal figures
the rise in CO2 reflects the world’s economy revving up and burning more
fossil fuels, especially in China.
levels jumped by 2.67 parts per million since 2011 to total just under 395
parts per million, says Pieter Tans, who leads the greenhouse gas
measurement team for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
second highest rise in carbon emissions since record-keeping began in 1959.
The measurements are taken from air samples captured away from civilization
near a volcano in Mauna Loa, Hawaii.
coal-burning power plants, especially in the developing world, are the main
reason emissions keep going up - even as they have declined in the U.S. and
other places, in part through conservation and cleaner energy.
At the same
time, plants and the world’s oceans which normally absorb some carbon
dioxide, last year took in less than they do on average, says John Reilly,
co-director of Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
Plant and ocean absorption of carbon varies naturally year to year.
But, Tans tells
The Associated Press the major factor is ever-rising fossil fuel burning:
“It’s just a testament to human influence being dominant.”
Only 1998 had a
bigger annual increase in carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas from
human activity. That year, 2.93 parts per million of CO2 was added. From
2000 to 2010, the world averaged a yearly rise of just under 2 parts per
million. Levels rose by less than 1 part per million in the 1960s.
In 2009, the
world’s nations agreed on a voluntary goal of limiting global warming to 3.6
degrees Fahrenheit over pre-industrial temperature levels. Since the
mid-1800s temperatures haven already risen about 1.5 degrees. Current
pollution trends translate to another 2.5 to 4.5 degrees of warming within
the next several decades, Reilly says.
of keeping climate change below that (2-degree goal) are fading away,” Tans
carbon pollution both by monitoring what comes out of factories and what
winds up in the atmosphere. Both are rising at rates faster than worst-case
scenarios that climate scientists used in their most recent international
projections, according to Pennsylvania State University climate scientist
harmful effects of climate change will happen sooner, Mann says.