Nov 18, 2009

By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Global carbon dioxide emissions are set to fall an estimated 2.8 percent this year because of the financial crisis, after having risen two percent in 2008, a leading annual report on the globe's "carbon budget" says.

The Global Carbon Project report, released just weeks before a major U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, shows emissions from developing nations continuing to soar, driven in large part by consumer demand in rich countries.

Developing nations are now responsible for 55 percent of mankind's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, said Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project.

And China is a key driver of rising emissions, says the report involving 31 authors and published in Nature Geoscience.

In 2005, nearly a third of China's emissions came from the production of exports, up from 16 percent in 1990, it says, with big-spending rich nations effectively exporting emissions to poorer nations to meet demand for TVs, cars and other goods.

The Global Carbon Project draws on the work and data from government agencies and research bodies around the world. It assesses CO2 emissions from human activities, such as burning coal and oil, and deforestation as well as how much planet-warming CO2 is taken up by nature.

The report says fossil fuel CO2 emissions rose 2 percent in 2008, more slowly than 2000-2007, when they increased 3.5 percent per year. Between 2000 and 2008, global fossil fuel emissions increased by 29 percent.

The findings closely match estimates by the International Energy Agency, which said in September global CO2 emissions would drop about 2.6 percent this year.