The rate of increase of CO2 has been found to vary over the past 8 years. CO2Now provides data which tracks annual atmospheric CO2 level and global CO2 emissions. Links for the data I have used to create the following graphs and tables can be found at the end of this post!
 |
| Table 1: Data used to produce Figure 1 and 2 |
 |
| Figure 1 |
 |
| Figure 2 |
From Figure 1, it is clear that leading up to the credit crisis of 2008, global CO2 emission, did actually seem to be at a falling rate of increase, and between 2008 and 2009, emission did actually fall. However, after the credit crisis, no one seemed to be too concerned with their environmental status and instead focus on getting the economy back on it's feet. This led to an increase rate of emissions of 5.15% from 2009-2010 and a 0.64% rate of increase in atmospheric CO2, shown in Figure 2. Increase rates for both measurements then began to slow again. From 2010 onwards, emission rates of increase have been slowing; however this is not the case for the increase rate of atmospheric CO2. Perhaps we are still seeing the effects of the 5.15% rise in increase rates of emissions. This really does suggest that we need to try harder to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels, which means everyone needs to get involved!
Emission data: http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/global-carbon-emissions.html
Atmospheric CO2 data: http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/annual-co2.html
