IEA Projects Global GHG Emissions Growth Up 57% By 2030 - AFP

PARIS -- Emissions of greenhouse gases will rise by 57 percent by 2030 compared to current levels, leading to a rise in Earth's surface temperature of at least three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

In its annual report on global energy needs, the Paris-based agency projected greenhouse-gas pollution would rise by 1.8 percent annually by 2030 on the basis of projected energy use and current efforts to mitigate emissions. The IEA saw scant chance of bringing this pollution down to a stable, safer level any time soon.

It poured cold water on a scenario sketched earlier this year by the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's paramount authority on global warming and its effects.

The IPCC said that to limit the average increase in global temperatures to 2.4 C (4.3 F) -- the most optimistic of any of its scenarios -- the concentration of greenhouse gases would have to stabilize at 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. The IPCC warned that, to achieve this goal, CO2 emissions would have to peak by 2015 at the latest and then fall between 50 and 85 percent by 2050.

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