US SAYS GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS FELL 1.5 PCT IN 2006
11.30.07 - Leído 93 veces. Enviar esta notaTimothy Gardner
US emissions of the gases blamed for global warming fell 1.5 percent in 2006 on mild weather and increased use of natural gas to generate power, the statistics arm of the Department of Energy estimated on Wednesday
NEW YORK, US; November 30, 2007.- President George W. Bush said in a release that the results keep the country “well ahead” of his greenhouse gas intensity goal — or how much of the gases are emitted per unit of economic activity.
But US emissions were much higher than they were in 1990, a key mark in international efforts to fight climate change, because it is the year below which rich countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol have to cut their emissions by 2008 to 2012.
US greenhouse gas emissions last year fell to 7,075.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, the Energy Information Administration, the DOE’s analytical arm estimated. It was the first annual fall in US emissions since 2001, when tourism travel slowed after the airplane attacks in New York and Washington, and the third since 1990.
The annual report was released ahead of a meeting of delegates from 190 countries in Bali, Indonesia, next month to decide how to bind outsiders led by the United States and China into a UN-led fight against climate change.
The United States does not regulate greenhouse gases. Early in his first term, Bush pulled the country out of the Kyoto pact saying it would hurt the economy and unfairly leave rapidly developing countries without limits.
Since the beginning of the oil age, the United States has emitted more of the gases than any other country that scientists say are warming the Earth risking deadly storms, droughts and floods.
In 2002, Bush set a goal of cutting greenhouse gas intensity 18 percent by 2012. The intensity fell last year by 4.2 percent, or more than double the average 2 percent decline since 1990, and has fallen about 10 percent from 2002 to 2006, the EIA said.
“Some of the factors that led to the decrease (like weather) are variable; others (such as
increased use of renewable energy for electricity generation) may indicate trends that are likely to continue,” the report said about the drop.
Bush said in the release that the “United States was looking forward to working with partners to reach consensus on a ‘Bali Roadmap’ at the upcoming UN meeting on climate change in Indonesia in December.”
US EMISSIONS MUCH HIGHER THAN KEY 1990 YEAR
However, US greenhouse gas emissions are much higher than in 1990, the year from which rich countries under Kyoto have to cut emissions at least 5 percent by 2008 to 2012.
US greenhouse emissions in 2006 were 15.1 percent higher than 1990, the report said.
And as energy demand and the US population increase, the country’s CO2 emissions from energy should rise at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent from 2004 to 2030, the report said.
CO2 emissions, responsible for more than 80 percent of the output of climate changing gases, were 5,934.4 million tonnes last year, down more than 1.8 percent from 6,045 million tonnes in 2005.
That was a steeper drop than a preliminary EIA estimate earlier in the year that CO2 emissions had fallen 1.3 percent.
Unseasonably cool weather in the summer and warm weather in the winter had kept power demand flat last year, while power utilities slightly decreased the burning of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, the report said.
Environmentalists said after the preliminary report last spring that mild weather more than any US policy was responsible for the fall.
(Reuters)
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