More than half of proven fossil fuel reserves may have to stay in the ground if governments are serious about a promise made in 2010 to limit a rise in average temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times, the Global Carbon Project report by leading research institutes said.

 

Emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and cement production will climb by 2.5 percent to a new record 37.0 billion tonnes in 2014, according to the report issued before a United Nations climate summit in New York on Tuesday.

 

Emissions of the main greenhouse gas rose 2.3 percent in 2013 to 36.1 billion tonnes, said the report, which was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

 

"A break in current emission trends is urgently needed," according to the report by experts in Britain, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands.

 

Emissions by China alone, which overtook the United States as the number one carbon emitter in 2006 amid fast industrial growth, have soared to eclipse those of the United States and the European Union combined, it said.

 

The report puts 2014 world carbon emissions 65 percent above levels in 1990, despite repeated promises of curbs and a shift to renewable energies such as wind and solar power as part of policies to avert more floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

 

The study said the 2C goal was slipping out of reach. Temperatures have already risen by 0.85 C (1.4 F) since the Industrial Revolution.

 

 

PHOTO: Smoke rises from chimneys and cooling towers of a refinery in Ningbo, Zhejiang province August 19, 2014.

CREDIT: China Daily