Think that predictions of rising greenhouse gas levels are alarmist? Think again.

New research is showing that worldwide CO2 emissions rose at a faster rate between 2000-2004 than the worst-case scenario imagined in this year's UN reports on global warming.

The rise over the first four years of this century is also greater than in the 1990s - 3.1% a year between 2000-2004, up from an average of 1.1% a year during the 1990s.

This is faster than scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggesting even its most alarming predictions of the effects of climate change may not tell the whole story.

The group responsible for those UN reports, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), represents 2,500 scientific experts from around the world. However, they have been baselessly accused of taking an alarmist position by climate change 'skeptics'. Now it is turning out that the groups conservative predictions have not gone nearly far enough.