What Does 3% Mean To Us?

3% sounds like a trivial number, but it is not, in terms of the annual increase of greenhouse gas emission.

International researchers announced Thursday that: "worldwide greenhouse gas emission, the principal gas that causes global warming, rose 3% from 2006 to 2007". Some scientists described it as "scary" because they expected a downturn in the emission since the slowing economy might have consumed less energy. But the result was surprising to the scientists and was worse than the worst case scenario forecast by a Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists in 2007.

LA Times article quoted Richard Moss, vice president and managing director of climate change at WWF (World Wildlife Fund): "We should be worried, really worried," because "this is happening in the context of reducing emissions."

So what does this 3% really mean?

It means in 2007, the greenhouse gas emission has reached the equivalent of almost 10 billion tonnes of carbon. This made the greenhouse gas concentration the highest in the last 650,000 years, probably during the last 20 million years.

LA Times article said the consequence of further temperature increase will be disastrous:

"The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that an increase of between 3.2 and 9.7 degrees Fahrenheit could trigger massive environmental changes, including melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the Himalayan-Tibetan glaciers and summer sea ice in the Arctic." To further understand the severity of the situation, take a look at NASA's report on Global Temperature Trend 2007.

Ironically, as the worldwide emissions growth went beyond the highest growth in fossil fuel predicted just two years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the two pollution leaders, China and the US, are busy blaming each other for not taking measures.

While the US urged China, who surpassed the US in 2006 to become the world's number 1 emitter, to take responsibility, China argued developed countries were responsible for 80% of historic emissions and, therefore, bore an "unshirkable responsibility" to take the lead in cutting down the emission. China blamed US for not signing Kyoto Protocol to refrain its emission level and also argued that if listed by capita, China is the 121st biggest emitter in the world.

It is like fighting with your neighbors when the whole neighborhood is caught on fire. Instead, this might be a good time for all the countries to stop thinking about its economic growth for a minute and act together to at least slow down the worsening, before we all miss the chance to put out the fire before it spreads out of control.