Global CO ₂ emissions rose 0.9% in 2019 despite a decline in the EU and the US

Global _CO2 emissions human-generated pollutants recorded an annual increase of 0.9% in 2019, with pollutant gases rising in China (+3.6%) and India (+1.6%) which did not offset the declines in the European Union (-3.8%), the United States (-2.6%), Japan (-2.1%) and Russia (-0.8%).

It is the main conclusion of a report published on Wednesday by the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), which underlines that the progress of 2019 is “slightly lower” than the average increase of 1.6% per year registered between 2016 and 2018.

Electricity generation is the only category that globally saw its emissions reduce in 2019 (-1%), while they increased in other types of industrial combustion (2%), buildings (2%), transport (1%) – with increases of 4% in international air transport and 2% in maritime – and other sectors (4%).

The study, which draws mainly on statistics provided by the countries themselves, focuses on anthropogenic CO emissions.₂ and notes that greenhouse gases recorded a global increase in 2019 following a period of stagnation in 2014 and 2015 and a moderate increase between 2016 and 2018.

In the global distribution, China accounts for 30.3% of global emissions and India 6.8%, while the United States is responsible for 13.4% of the total, the EU 8.7%, Japan 3% and Russia 4.7%.

In addition, CO2 emissions increased significantly in Indonesia (8%) and Australia (4.1%), Iran (3.4%) and Saudi Arabia (1.5%) while it fell markedly in South Korea (3.2%), Mexico (1.6%) and Turkey (1.5%).

EUROPEAN UNION

The annual reduction of 3.8% in the EU in 2019 is more than double the path marked between 2017 and 2018, when the European decline was 1.5%.

In 2019, in the EU only building-related emissions increased (+1%), while they fell for electricity generation (-12%) and other types of industrial combustion (-2%) and remained stable in transport and other sectors.

EU emissions “have decreased in the last two decades to stand at 3.3 gigatons (Gt) of CO₂ in 2019″ compared to the 38 Gt of the planet as a whole, which represents a reduction of 25.1% compared to 1990 levels and 22.2% compared to 2005″, says the JRC.

This means that the weight of the EU (and the United Kingdom, as it was a Member State until January 2020) in global emissions has gone from 9.6 to 8.7% of the total between 2015 and 2019, although it is still above the average of per capita emissions (6.5 tons of CO).₂ per person per year in the EU compared to 4.9 in the world).

The largest European _co2 emitter was Germany (21.3%), followed by the United Kingdom (11%), Italy (10%), Poland (9.6%), France (9.5%) and Spain (7.8%).

The countries that cut their _CO2 contributions the most were Estonia (21.4%), Finland (8.9%), Denmark (8.4%), Germany (6.5%) and Portugal (6.8%), in most cases as a result of replacing coal with other fuels.

In the EU as a whole, gas consumption increased by 2.6% in 2019, but oil (0.4%) and coal (21.6%) fell.

CORONAVIRUS

The drafters of the report work with data from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, but advance that the measures applied in 2020 to curb the spread of the coronavirus are expected to have a notable impact on _CO2 emissions.

They add a reference to a study published last April by the International Energy Agency, which anticipates in 2020 a 6% decrease in energy demand linked to the halt in economic activity.

That is, seven times more than the drop in emissions recorded after the economic and financial crisis of 2008, which would result in a decrease in _CO2 emissions linked to fossil fuels of 8%.

Source: The Vanguard