Worse than Worst

Any way you slice it, this is bad news. Just really terrible. Researchers say the world's carbon dioxide emissions are increasing at a rate that outstrips even the "worst-case" assumptions upon with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, bases it's most pessimistic projections. Where emissions in the 1990s averaged growth of 1.1 percent per year, between 2000-2004 (the period studied), rates were three times as high, at 3.3 percent per year.

Various factors account for the trend, including enormous growth in China and India, a drop-off in the progress of energy efficiency, and the fact that, "no region in the world is de-carbonizing its energy supply."