The UN released figures yesterday that showed greenhouse gas emissions of 40 industrialised nations rose by 2.3% between 2000 and 2006. There was a slight dip between 2005 and 2006 (0.1%), but this was too small to suggest a downward trend.
Compared to 1990 levels, emissions actually fell by about 5%. However, this pre-2000 decrease has been attributed to the economic decline of transition countries in Eastern and Central Europe during the 1990s.
The report did not include figures from India and China. Along with the US, these three nations have not yet taken action under the Kyoto Protocol.
Among industrialised nations, 16, including the UK, are on track to meet their Kyoto Protocol obligations.
With the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012, the Copenhagen climate change conference in 2009 is shaping up to be key to future emissions targets.
Photo by Flickr user freefotouk. Published under a Creative Commons license.
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[...] came after the collapse of the Soviet Union (something which can skew our interpretation of emissions data if we’re not [...]