Greenhouse gas emissions still rising, UN report confirms

The figures, published on Monday (November 17), show emissions by 40 industrialized nations grew by 2.3 percent in 2006, equivalent of 18 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2006 from 17.6 billion in 2000. They dipped by 0.1 per cent in 2006 compared to 2005, but underlying trends were still up.

While countries such as the UK, France, Greece and Hungary, were on target to meet their Kyoto obligations, others such as Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, New Zealand and Japan, were lagging behind, the data showed.

However, it is in former Soviet bloc nations where the biggest rises have occured. Despite declining in pre-2000, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent economic decline in that region, emissions in Eastern and Central European countries rose 7.4 percent since 2000 to 3.7 billion tonnes.

Coming two weeks before major UN climate change talks in Poznan, Poland, the UN Secretariat said the trend showed the urgent need to agree a new UN climate treaty in Copenhagen, Denmark, next year.

“The figures clearly underscore the urgency for the UN negotiating process to make good progress in Poznan and move forward quickly in designing a new agreement to respond to the challenge of climate change,” Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said.

The 2006 dip of 0.1 per cent was mainly caused by a fall in US emissions to 7 billion tonnes from 7.1 billion tonnes in 2005, put down to factors such as rising oil prices and a mild winter that cut demand for heating.

The UN Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions calls for average cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of at least five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012, to avoid the worst effects of climate change, such as floods, heatwaves and storms, causing water and food shortages.

Nations that miss their 2012 Kyoto target will be penalised by 33 per cent being added to any cut agreed under a new treaty.

The UN statistics only cover industrialised countries as developing nations have no obligation to cut emissions. They also omit emissions from aviation and shipping, which do not have to be reported under the Kyoto Protocol.

The US has up until now refused to be part of the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, but President-elect Barack Obama has indicated that he wants to follow the UK and cut greenhouse gas emissions in the US by 80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050.