http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5B000U20091201 World carbon emissions overshoot "budget": PwC
Tue Dec 1, 2009 9:19am EST
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - The world has emitted extra greenhouse gases this century equivalent to the annual totals of China and the United States above a maximum for avoiding the worst of climate change, a study estimated Tuesday.
Global accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers said in the report that almost all major nations, including European Union countries that pride themselves on climate policies, were lagging since 2000 in a push for low-carbon growth.
It said the world was already far above a "budget" of total emissions of 1,300 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from 2000-50 which it estimated as the maximum permissible while avoiding the worst of climate change.
"For 2000-08, the cumulative global budget overshoot, or 'carbon debt', is estimated at around 13 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide -- roughly equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of China and the United States combined in 2008," it said.
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