Driven by China and India and seemingly unaffected by an economic slowdown, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will reach a record high in 2012, according to new figures made public on Sunday.
Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels - mainly the use of coal to generate
electricity - will rise to a record 35.6 billion tonnes, a 58% rise above 1990 levels, said a study released by the Global Carbon Project, a partnership of scientists established in 2001 to create a knowledge base about global warming.
The latest warning - in a slew of dire reports since November - comes during climate-change negotiations, currently on in Doha, Qatar, and due to close, inconclusively, on December 7.
The last 13 years appear to have been particularly damaging, "driven mainly at the moment by China, followed by India and other large countries," said Prof Corinne Le Quéré, co-lead author of the study and director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia in the UK, in an interview to Mint.
