Worldwide Emissions of CO2: Background for the Durban Conference

Summary . Energy use by developing countries of the world increased dramatically between 1972 and 2008. During this period energy use by the developed countries increased at a far lower rate. The U. S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), in recent reports, project energy use by developing countries to continue to grow at very high rates through 2035, while use by the developed countries is projected to grow much more weakly, in the absence of new climate policies to limit energy use. In an IEA scenario intended to keep atmospheric CO 2 concentration below 450 parts per million, most CO 2 emission is committed due to facilities already in service; only the few facilities to be placed in service are available to mitigate CO 2 emission. The IEA warns that effective policies to limit energy use and CO 2 emission should be operating by 2017 in order to avoid emergency expenditures on a much larger scale for infras...