A study showed that global carbon emission reached 10 billion tons in 2010 and that the average yearly fossil fuel emissions increased by an average of 3.1 percent starting 2000 up to 2010, and expected to continue to increase by 3.1 percent in 2011.

In addition, latest figures from researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA) showed that for the last two decades global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by 49 percent.

According to the study, total emissions of global carbon reached 10 billion tons in 2010 for the first time. These include fossil fuel combustion, cement production, deforestation and other land use emissions. Half of the emissions remained in the atmosphere,while the remaining portion were taken up in approximately equal proportions by the ocean and land reservoirs.

"Global CO2 emissions since 2000 are tracking the high end of the projections used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which far exceed two degrees warming by 2100," said co-author Prof Corinne Le Quéré, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and professor at the University of East Anglia.

"Yet governments have pledged to keep warming below two degrees to avoid the most dangerous aspects of climate change such as widespread water stress and sea level rise, and increases in extreme climatic events. Taking action to reverse current trends is urgent," said Le Quéré.

Largest contributors to global emissions growth in 2010 were China, the United States, India, the Russian Federation and the European Union. According to reports, emissions resulting from the trade of goods and services that were produced in emerging economies but consumed in the West increased from 2.5 per cent of the share of rich countries in 1990 to 16 per cent in 2010.

In the UK, fossil fuel CO2 emissions grew 3.8 per cent in 2010, however this was 14 per cent below their 1990 levels. On the other hand, emissions from the trade of goods and services grew from 5 per cent of the emissions produced locally in 1990 to 46 per cent in 2010, which overcompensated the reductions in local emissions.

"Many saw the global financial crisis as an opportunity to move the global economy away from persistent and high emissions growth, but the return to emissions growth in 2010 suggests the opportunity was not exploited," said lead author Dr Glen Peters, of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Norway.