The paper examines the global and regional drivers of accelerating CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial processes. The growth rate of CO₂ emissions increased from 1.1% per year from 1990 to 1999 to over 3% per year from 2000 to 2004, surpassing even the most fossil-fuel-intensive scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the late 1990s. This acceleration is driven by a combination of increasing population and per-capita GDP, coupled with a cessation or reversal of earlier declining trends in energy intensity of GDP (energy/GDP) and carbon intensity of energy (emissions/energy). No region is decarbonizing its energy supply. The growth rate is particularly strong in rapidly developing economies, especially China, which accounted for 73% of global emissions growth in 2004 but only 41% of global emissions and 23% of cumulative emissions since the mid-18th century. The findings have implications for global equity and the need for concerted action to address climate change.The paper examines the global and regional drivers of accelerating CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial processes. The growth rate of CO₂ emissions increased from 1.1% per year from 1990 to 1999 to over 3% per year from 2000 to 2004, surpassing even the most fossil-fuel-intensive scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the late 1990s. This acceleration is driven by a combination of increasing population and per-capita GDP, coupled with a cessation or reversal of earlier declining trends in energy intensity of GDP (energy/GDP) and carbon intensity of energy (emissions/energy). No region is decarbonizing its energy supply. The growth rate is particularly strong in rapidly developing economies, especially China, which accounted for 73% of global emissions growth in 2004 but only 41% of global emissions and 23% of cumulative emissions since the mid-18th century. The findings have implications for global equity and the need for concerted action to address climate change.