Europe’s Trend Of CO2 Reductions Seems To Have Stopped
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
http://ift.tt/16C5B6P
By Paul Homewood
From euobserver:
The EU’s statistical agency Eurostat announced Thursday (4 May) that CO2 emissions resulting from the EU’s energy use have “slightly decreased” in 2016, compared to the year before.
But Eurostat’s press release did not mention that the small decrease has not made up for the small increase in CO2 emissions the year before, and that more CO2 was emitted in 2016 than in 2014.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions account for around 80 percent of all of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to potentially disastrous climate change.
In 2016, carbon emissions dropped by 0.4 percent compared to 2015, Eurostat said in a press release.
But in 2015, CO2 emissions had increased by 0.7 percent compared to 2014.
In other words, last year’s CO2 emissions increased by 0.29 percent compared to 2014, which means that for the second consecutive year the EU’s carbon emissions are higher than in 2014, albeit very slightly.
The flatlining contrasts with figures from 2014, when emissions dropped by 5 percent compared to the year before. In the two years before, the year-on-year decrease had also been at least 2 percent.
It was in 2014 that the EU had reached its long-term target: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent compared to 1990 – it had achieved a 22.9 percent reduction.
If the EU does not increase its CO emissions significantly, it will achieve its goal, but critics say that is not enough to help reduce the risk of global warming.
In any case, EU citizens still have a much larger carbon footprint that is 2.5 times that of inhabitants in the developing world.
Within the EU, most of the CO2 is emitted by its largest member. Last year, Germany accounted for 22.9 percent of the EU’s CO2 emissions. Germany’s CO2 emissions had increased by 0.7 percent compared to the year before.
And guess which mugs are taking it seriously?
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT http://ift.tt/16C5B6P
May 5, 2017 at 03:09AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 