CO2 growth in 2006 was still higher than average and four of the last five years have been higher than average.

"Co2 emission speed up and scale up. We do not have more time to change our lifestyle and economical model' said Jean-Luc Roux

UPDATE: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) has now told us that the story below is based on preliminary data for December, which it should not have published. It has withdrawn the data pending further analysis. As a result, the provisional annual growth rate for 2006 displayed on the Noaa website now does not include December, which means it is now lower than the 2.6ppm we reported. Pieter Tans, the scientist in charge of the data, said: "It doesn't affect the trend, there is definitely something there. CO2 growth in 2006 was still higher than average and four of the last five years have been higher than average."

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Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought.

New figures from dozens of measuring stations across the world reveal that concentrations of CO2, the main greenhouse gas, rose at record levels during 2006 - the fourth year in the last five to show a sharp increase. Experts are puzzled because the spike, which follows decades of more modest annual rises, does not appear to match the pattern of steady increases in human emissions.

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