Global emissions of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide will jump more than 39 percent from 2006 levels by 2030 without new policies and binding pacts to cut global warming pollution, the top US energy forecast agency said on May 27. Nearly 200 nations are set to meet late this year in Copenhagen to hash out a new agreement to control the gases as the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
In addition, US President Barack Obama and leaders in both the House and Senate hope to regulate greenhouse gases through use of a cap and trade market on the emissions. Without new agreements, which are expected to foster new technologies such as solar and wind power and burial of carbon dioxide underground, world emissions of the gas should hit 40.4 billion tonnes by 2030, up from 29 billion tonnes in 2006, said the Energy Information Administration, the independent statistics arm of the Department of Energy.
Much of the growth in pollution levels is expected to come from developing countries such as China and India that burn a lot of coal. "With strong economic growth and continued heavy reliance on fossil fuels expected for most of the developing economies, much of the increase in carbon dioxide emission is projected to occur among the developing nations," the EIA said in the report, its annual International Energy Outlook.
The United States, which is the world's second biggest greenhouse gas polluter behind China, is by far the largest emitter of the gases on a per capita basis.