Carbon emissions sees record rise despite economic recession

Simon, Very worrying, but the question I ask is why are emissions going up? Is it just the hangover from the pre-bust boom which we're only now detecting (i.e a delayed reaction)? or is it from increased use of dirtier fuels as people try and cut corners in the downturn? It could also be agriculture related, as the growing global population and increased meat production means an increase in greenhouse gases. Of course the worse case scenario is that's its coming from the natural world, the rain-forests and oceans. They are like a giant carbon sponge and there is a limit to how much greenhouse gases they can absorb, not helped by us burning them down/using the oceans as an open sewer. Have these sinks passed the tipping point where they begin to release more carbon than they take in? If so then we've got a mountain to climb....while wearing boxing gloves and roller blades!

The Guardian article that the blog post link to says that the rise is greenhouse gas emissions mainly comes from our use of fossil fuels: "Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data." Let's hope that we have a little while longer until the self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms starts to kick in...

The most worrying is that it seems that more and more people don't trust the media and environmental agencies anymore, all the more since the failure of the Copenhagen summit. I am currently working in carbon management company in South Africa (  http://www.climateafrica.co.za/, http://www.climatestandard.org/) and more and more people come up with stuff like "Why should we reduce our ghg emissions when volcanoes are responsible for more CO2 emissions than human activities?". I don't know where people hear that but i suspect anti-ecologist to be behind such statements. I did some research and volcanoes are responsible for 200 million tons of emissions whereas human activities represent 30 billion tons. I hope that the media will cover such questions more accurately, so that people become really aware of the problem.