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Thursday 25 September 2008 at 4.15pm AEST (Updated at 7pm AEST)

ORIGINAL EMBARGO RESCINDED - for immediate release

RAPID ROUNDUP: Carbon dioxide global data for 2007 released – emissions still booming: Experts respond

New data showing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2007 will be released simultaneously in Washington and Paris on Friday 26 September by the Global Carbon Project (GCP).

The latest figures indicate:

• Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration reached 383 parts per million in 2007, the highest concentration of the last 650,000 years
• The annual mean increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide was 2.2 parts per million (ppm) in 2007, up from 1.8 ppm in 2006
• Human-generated emissions from combustion of fossil fuel and land use change reached 10 billion tonnes of carbon in 2007
• The growth rate of carbon emissions from fossil fuels and cement averaged 3.5% per year for the period 2000-2007, almost four times faster than the previous decade (1990-1999) when the increase averaged 0.9% per year.

This annual update (Carbon budget and trends 2007) is being released simultaneously at the Paris Observatory by Australian CSIRO scientist (and GCP co-chair) Dr Michael Raupach and at Capitol Hill in Washington by GCP Executive Director Dr Pep Canadell, a carbon specialist based at CSIRO in Canberra.

Below several climate scientists discuss the latest figures.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. Any further comments will be posted here. If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 8207 7415 or by email.

Dr Paul Fraser is Program Manager for the Measurement, Processes & Remote Sensing Program in CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and is a contributor to the Global Carbon Project.

“What the data is showing is that the global emissions of carbon dioxide are increasing by about 3.5% per year from fossil fuels. In reference to the Kyoto Protocol this is quite a disappointingly high rate. Under the Protocol we expect emissions from developed countries to be reducing compared to 1990 levels. But there is no evidence that this is happening, at least globally.”

Professor Graham Farquhar is Vice President of the Australian Academy of Science and was a science advisor to the Australian delegation at the Conference of Parties at Kyoto.

"The rate of increase of carbon dioxide concentration is again the greatest that humans have experienced. It exceeds the largest rate of emissions of any scenario used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Of course with the economic activity seen over recent years that increase is not surprising. From a scientific point of view it is interesting that the biosphere continues to sequester about half the emitted carbon dioxide. The proportion taken up by the oceans has apparently declined.

The relentless increase in atmospheric concentration adds weight to the calls for a greater understanding of what its effects on climate and life will be, and how the biosphere maintains its share of uptake. Our understanding of these effects is only partial. We are reasonably confident about associated increases in temperature and hence in sea level, but the effects on rainfall are much less clear. While it should increase globally there will presumably be areas where rainfall decreases. We have very limited ability at present to make regional forecasts, but there is concern that storm tracks could move further south and reduce rainfall in southern Australia. However, different models give different results, some showing Australia wetting up and some showing drying, and the same models with slightly different starting conditions, often give different results.

We do not know the limits placed on regional forecasts by the "butterfly effect". We also have only a limited, and in many cases declining, ability to monitor the changes in key drivers, like the energy balance of the earth's surface, like the functioning of ecosystems, like the amount of water stored at large scale in soil and in aquifers. Our ability to predict is hamstrung by our ability to observe. We need to make an effort to better understand our climate system."

Dr Andrew Glikson is an Earth and paleo-climate scientist at the Australian National University.

"The rise and rise of carbon emissions and atmospheric CO2 reported by the Global carbon Project are threatening to render the current global economic problems a transient issue when compared to runaway climate change, notably reported high-methane "hot spots" along the Siberian Arctic shelf which threaten to accelerate global warming.

The magnitude of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing since the mid-19th century (~2.2 Watt/m2; CO2 ~ 1.6; CH4 ~ 0.5; NxO ~ 0.11) places the climate system on an exponential warming trend, briefly interrupted by the 11 years-long sunspot cycle (+/-0.2 Watt/m2), ENSO (El Nino - La Nina episodes +/- 0.4 Watt/m2) and transient aerosol albedo effects (mainly SO2, soot and dust). Due to the centuries-long CO2 residence time and thereby cumulative effect of emissions, proposed emissions slow-down rates (Emission Trading Schemes - ETS) may not be able to prevent crossing of potential tipping points affected by release of CO2 and methane from warming oceans and drying biosphere, nor is it likely to mitigate ice melt/warm water feedback effects.

Clean coal, a positive idea in principle, would not be able to resolve the cumulative effect of continuing emissions, nor the carbon cycle and ice-melt/water feedback effects, and should therefore be only one part of a range of urgent mitigation measures.

Recently leading US climate scientists have called for urgent attempts at developing atmsopheric CO2 draw-down technology aimed at reducing levels from the current 387 ppm to 325 ppm or lower (Hansen et al., 2008). Such attempts need to be accompanied with fast-track transitions from polluting to clean energy utilities, replacement of base-grid power fossil fuel plants with solar-thermal and geothermal technology, and equipment of vehicles with recharged batteries. A global re-forrestation campaign needs to be undertaken.

Inherent in the thinking of those who focus on economics and politics are linear trajectories, though rarely do they take exponential rise toward tipping points into account. Central premises hinge on attempts at competition, agreement and compromise. None of these approaches accords with attempts at mitigation of terrestrial atmospheric changes which are of non-linear nature and, once triggered, can hardly be "negotiated" or "argued" with ...

Barring urgent effective measures at mitigation it is questionable whether terms such as climate "stabilization" represent more than climate "Newspeak", or whether ETS-based measures are sufficient to avert dangerous tipping points. Leaving it to the market to sort out the climate may not prove more successful than leaving the global banking economy to its own devices, though there is no sign governments are planning a climate rescue scheme of any such magnitude.

In order to buy time, attempts at climate mitigation are likely to be accompanied with geo-engineering, i.e increasing the atmospheric albedo through injection of SO2 aerosols (incorporated in airline jet fuel), spraying of alumina particles and the like.

There is no evidence that the Garnaut Draft Report's (GDR) recommended 10% emission cut relative to 2000 by 2020, nor the Government's focus on clean coal, may be able to turn the climate around. The near-absence of estimates of GHG and ice melt feedback effects, in particular the volumes of methane and methane hydrates that can be released by even a further 1 degree C warming, councels caution.

It is not clear to what extent the Garnaut Draft Report and the government appreciate the implications of a 550 ppm CO2 atmosphere. Last time CO2 levels rose to about 400 ppm, in the mid-Pliocene (3 million years-ago), temperatures rose by 2 to 3 degrees C and sea levels by 25+/-12 metres, flooding what are now the agricultural and urban centres of civilization. Given the scale of fossil fuel reserves of over 5000 Gigaton carbon, further release of carbon emissions may take the atmosphere to uncharted territory."

Dr Ben McNeil is Senior Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales' Climate Change Research Centre

"This disturbing new greenhouse gas emission data shows the world is tracking towards the highest levels of emissions thought possible by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It demonstrates the challenge and urgency needed for the international community to setup up a global climate change agreement that reverses the acceleration in global greenhouse gas emissions."

Professor Barry Brook is Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change and Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide.

“The carbon emissions growth story coming out of the latest Global Carbon Project analyses isn’t getting any brighter. At the average rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere over the last few years, we’ll reach a concentration of 450 parts per million by about the year 2040. And that’s an optimistic outlook under a business-as-usual economic scenario, if carbon ‘sinks’ in the ocean miraculously cease their decline in effectiveness, and industrial emissions growth somehow stagnates at the current output. A more realistic projection, accounting for further decline in carbon sinks and ramping up of industrial activity, suggests 2030 is a plausible timeline. But whatever the specific date, 450ppm CO2 commits us to >2 degrees C global warming and all the disastrous consequences this sets in train.

Of particular concern is that emissions from deforestation (mostly the burning of rain forest) in our nearest tropical neighbour region, Southeast Asia, continue to skyrocket. Not only is this damaging to this area’s rich biodiversity (because habitat is degraded and fragmented), but it also has a huge impact on the region’s carbon budget. Yet Southeast Asia, like Australia is particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change from sea level rise and changes in rainfall patterns. Emissions from Southeast Asian forest loss now exceed those of Latin America or Africa – truly the global ‘hotspot’ of CO2 from deforestation. Australia’s regional role in abatement has never been clearer.

Each year that Australia’s industrial emissions and Southeast Asia’s forestry emissions continues to grow, our chances of avoiding the worst consequences of climate change diminish. Are we willing to continue to act like a lazy audience in a movie theatre, watching passively as a disaster film plays out in slow motion, in which we are the real-life actors? Who is going to ask the projectionist to turn off the reel before we get to the disturbing climax and the end credits start to roll?”

Professor Tony McMichael is an NHMRC Australia Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health (NCEPH) at The Australian National University in Canberra

“This new information on emission trends is now much more than a mere wake-up call. This is a ‘get up and get moving – fast’ call.

This dramatic increase in carbon dioxide emissions is part of a larger and increasingly worrying picture. There have also been reports, recently, of accelerating sea-level rise and of the rapidly increasing rate of release of methane gas from the warmer Arctic seabed. And methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

It’s time to stop thinking of environmental changes as being ‘somewhere out there’, as primarily a threat to our economy, jobs and convenience. These changes are endangering the very systems, the life-support processes, that our health and survival depend upon. Their effects will increasingly disrupt social organisation and political relations between countries and regions.”

Professor Matthew England is an ARC Federation Fellow, and Joint Director of the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre

“This latest information on rising carbon dioxide emissions is a big wake-up call to industry, business and politicians. There is just one aspect of the climate system that we have genuine control over: namely, our emissions from fossil fuels and land-use change. We have little control over the natural sinks of carbon: we cannot control how much carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans, and even with complete protection of the world’s forests carbon uptake by the terrestrial biosphere remains uncertain. These sinks of carbon can change rapidly and could profoundly exacerbate the climate crisis. This latest alarming rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations is yet another message that we need to act immediately to reverse the upward trends.”

Dr John Church is Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research in Tasmania and Leader of the Sea-level Rise Program at the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystem CRC.
He’s also a former chairman of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), an international research network hosted by the World Meteorological Organisation.

"The continuing and indeed growing emissions both globally and in Australia contrast markedly with what needs to be done if the world is to prevent major impacts from climate change during the 21st century and beyond. Sea level is already rising at the upper end of the IPCC projections. As long as these large emissions continue, sea level is likely to continue to track near the upper end of the IPCC projections as a result of ocean warming, melting of glaciers and potentially increasing contributions from the ice sheets. By 2100 millions of people would be affected by rising sea levels.

At this rate, the 550 ppm CO2 equivalent level could be passed well before the end of the 21st century. If we stabilised at the 550 ppm CO2 equivalent level, there is about a 50% chance, the toss of a coin, that surface melting alone would result in ongoing melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet leading eventually to the virtual complete elimination of the Greenland Ice Sheet and a sea-level rise of metres.

To avoid these scenarios, the world needs significant, urgent and sustained reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases. Aggressive short term goals are critical to achieving the reductions needed."

Erwin Jackson is Director of Policy and Research at the Climate Institute

"This is timely reminder that the longer we delay action to reduce emissions significantly the harder it will be to avoid large scale irreversible global impacts. The reduction in the efficiency of natural systems to absorb our greenhouse emissions is of great concern and highlights that we risk crossing points of no return where natural systems conspire against us drive ever worsening climate impacts. The time for a soft start to emission reductions is over."