The Global Carbon Project found worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide from fuel burning and cement production increased by 3.5 percent per year from 2000 to 2007, nearly four times the growth rate in the 1990s.

Carbon released from burning fossil fuels, producing cement and changing land use produced 9.94 billion metric tons of carbon compared with 9.7 billion tons in 2006, the Canberra, Australia-based Global Carbon Project reported.

Emissions in the United States rose nearly 2 percent in 2007. The report also reveals that natural carbon sinks such as forests and oceans are slowing their absorption rates.

“This new update of the carbon budget shows the acceleration of both CO2 emissions and atmospheric accumulation are unprecedented and most astonishing during a decade of intense international developments to address climate change,” Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project, said in a statement. The numbers were a surprise because scientists thought an economic downturn and international efforts to reduce the emissions would slow energy use.

Reports show that China’s added emissions accounted for more than half of the worldwide increase.

The global warming is a phenomenon consisting in the increase of the average temperature of the Earth near-surface air and oceans. This phenomenon has been mostly taking place in the recent decades and its consequences are disastrous for man and the entire world.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists revealed that the decade which ended in 2006 was the warmest time period in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 1,300 years or more.