UN: For 7th year, warming emissions grew again

The industrialized world again in 2007 boosted, rather than reduced, its emissions of global-warming gases, the U.N. reported Wednesday, as international negotiators looked ahead to crucial climate talks in December.

Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases rose by 1 percent between 2006 and 2007 among 40 nations classified as industrialized under the 1992 U.N. climate treaty, the treaty secretariat reported, detailing data for the latest available reporting period.

It was the seventh consecutive year of an upward trend, it said.

European Union countries did cut their emissions year-to-year, by an average of 1.6 percent, led by Denmark's 6.1 percent reduction. But the United States, the biggest emitter in this group, increased its emissions by 1.4 percent, and the output of heat-trapping gases by Japan, Canada and Australia also rose, the data show.

Scientists attribute a 0.74-degree Celsius (1.3-degree Fahrenheit) rise in global temperatures in the past century in part to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The warming will severely disrupt the climate, they say, unless emissions are cut back sharply, by at least 80 percent by 2050.

Under the climate treaty's 1997 Kyoto Protocol, 37 industrialized nations are committed to reduce emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States was the only major industrialized nation to reject Kyoto, arguing such cuts would harm its economy, and that fast-growing economies, such as China's, should have been subject to Kyoto quotas.

President Barack Obama, reversing his predecessor George W. Bush's position, says the United States wants to join in a new post-2012 global agreement to rein in emissions, but in exchange U.S. negotiators seek some level of commitment from China, India, Brazil and other poorer nations. Developing countries complain, meanwhile, that emissions reductions envisioned in pending U.S. legislation are too weak.

The dispute threatens to block final agreement at the U.N. climate conference scheduled for Dec. 7-20 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In releasing the emissions data, U.S. climate treaty chief Yvo de Boer said the numbers "underscore, once again, the urgent need to seal a comprehensive, fair and effective climate change deal in Copenhagen."

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