IEA reports significant increase in carbon dioxide emissions

Emissions are estimated to have climbed to 30.6 gigatonnes (Gt), a five per cent rise from the previous record year in 2008 when levels reached 29.3Gt. In terms of fuels, 44 per cent of the estimated CO₂ emissions in 2010 came from coal, 36 per cent from oil and 20 per cent from natural gas.

The IEA has also estimated that 80 per cent of projected emissions from the power sector in 2020 are already ‘locked in’, as they will come from operational power plants or those currently under construction.

‘This significant increase in CO₂ emissions and the locking in of future emissions due to infrastructure investments represent a serious setback to our hopes of limiting the global rise in temperature to no more than 2ºC,’ said Dr Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA who oversees the annual World Energy Outlook.

A target of limiting temperature increase to 2°C was agreed by world leaders at the UN climate change talks in Cancun in 2010. For this goal to be achieved, the long-term concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must be limited to around 450 parts per million of CO₂ equivalent — a five per cent increase compared with an estimated 430 parts per million in 2000.