Boom sees CO2 danger level reached 10 years early

THE global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia’s leading scientists.

Tim Flannery, a world-recognised climate change scientist and Australian of the Year in 2007, said a UN climate change report due in November will show that greenhouse gases have already reached dangerous levels.

He said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report will show that greenhouse gas in the atmosphere in mid-2005 had reached about 455 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent — a level not expected for another 10 years.