Greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations continue to rise at a steady and increasing rate.

For the month of December 2006, the atmospheric concentration of CO2, measured at Mauna Loa in Hawaii by NOAA, was 382.43 ppm.

Over the past few years, CO2 concentration has increased by as much as 2.5 ppm/year—much faster than in earlier years, when the concentration seldom increased by more than 1.0 to 1.5 ppm a year.

According to Australia’s CSIRO, global emissions of CO2 in 2005 were approximately 7.9 billion metric tons (of carbon)—an increase of more than 2.5 percent over 2004. This represents a very significant increase.

In the 1990s, annual CO2 emissions growth was less than 1 percent per year.