Biggest spike ever in global warming gases

The amount of global warming gases sent into the atmosphere made an unprecedented jump in 2010, according to the US Department of Energy's latest world data on carbon dioxide emissions. "It's big," Tom Boden, director of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center Environmental Sciences Division at the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, told AFP in an interview. "Our data go back to 1751, even before the Industrial Revolution. Never before have we seen a 500-million-metric-ton carbon increase in a single year." The increase, measured from C02 emissions released into the atmosphere as a result of burning coal and gas, amounted to a near six percent rise between 2009 and 2010, going from 8.6 billion metric tons to 9.1 billion. Large jumps were seen in the United States, China and India, the world's top three polluters. Significant spikes over 2009 were also seen in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan. Some countries, like Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Spain, New Zealand and Pakistan actually showed slight declines from 2009 to 2010, but those nations were uncommon. Much of Europe showed a moderate uptick. The figures could indicate economic recovery from the global recession of 2007-2008, according to Boden. "At least from an energy consumption standpoint, companies were back to manufacturing levels that rivaled pre-2008 levels, people were traveling again so emissions from the transportation sector rivaled those of pre-2008," he said. But the data also raised concerns about the health of the environment. "This is very bad news," said John Abraham, associate professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering in Minnesota. "These results show that it will be harder to make the tough cuts to emissions if we are to head off a climate crisis." The data is derived from United Nations statistics gathered from every country in the world about fossil fuel energy stockpiles, imports, exports and production, as well as energy data compiled by oil giant BP. "If you know how much of a fuel is consumed and you know the oxidation rate and you know the carbon content of the fuel, you can derive the emission estimate, so it is a pretty straightforward algorithm as far as the calculation," said Boden.