Carbon dioxide emissions set record

 Emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide reached an all-time high last year, further reducing the chances that the world could avoid a dangerous rise in global average temperature by 2020, according to the International Energy Agency, the energy analysis group for the world’s most industrialized states.

 Global emissions of carbon dioxide, or CO2, from fossil-fuel combustion hit a record high of 31.6 gigatonnes in 2011, according to the IEA’s preliminary estimates, an increase of 1 Gt, or 3.2 percent, from 2010.

 The burning of coal accounted for 45 percent of total energy-related CO2 emissions in 2011, followed by oil (35 percent) and natural gas (20 percent).

 According to the vast majority of climatologists, the rapid rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of industrialization over the last 150 years has led to an increase in global average temperature by about 1 degree Celsius.

 China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, followed by the United States, the European Union and India.

 Carbon dioxide emissions in the United States fell by 1.7 percent, or 92 megatonnes, in 2011, as more power companies switched to natural gas from coal and a mild winter reduced heating demand. Emissions in the United States have now fallen by 7.7 percent since 2006, according to the IEA.

Tribune Washington bureau