Global carbon emissions rising rapidly - study

By David Fogarty

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Global carbon emissions rose rapidly in 2007, an annual study says, with developing nations such as China and India now producing more than half of mankind's output of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming.

The Global Carbon Project said in its report carbon dioxide emissions from mankind are growing about four times faster since 2000 than during the 1990s, despite efforts by a number of nations to rein in emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.

Emissions from burning fossil fuels was a major contributor to the increase, the authors said in their "Global Carbon Project (2008) Carbon budget and trends 2007" report (here).

India would soon overtake Russia to become the world's third largest CO2 emitter, it says.

"What we are talking about now for the first time is that the absolute value of all emissions going into the atmosphere every year are bigger coming from less developing countries than the developed world," said the project's Australia-based executive director Pep Canadell.

"The other thing we confirm is that China is indeed now the top emitter," he told Reuters, adding that China alone accounted for 60 percent of all growth in emissions. The United States was the second largest emitter.

The project is supported by the International Council for Science, the umbrella body for all national academies of science.