According to new data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA, how confusing…), the national energy-related carbon dioxide emissions declined by 3.8 percent last year, thus reaching their levels of 1994 while the economy grew.
Many factors contributed to this drop in emissions. Among them are a warmer winter, a more efficient economy (notably new mileage for cars), less miles driven and a switch from dirty coal to cleaner natural gas and renewables.
The latter, including wind power, seem to have had a very limited role in this trend. This is why it’s important to increase our efforts in the clean energy transition.
In any case, these are great news and one can congratulate the United States of America for that.
So the European Union is not the only major emitter to see its carbon dioxide emissions going down without any strong governmental directions. I have indeed reported in a previous Cleantechies article that EU carbon dioxide emissions fell over 18 percent since 1990, thus being very near from 2020 targets.
What if both the USA and the EU became really serious on rising temperatures ? Let’s hope this happens quickly as the climate is warming faster and faster and the risks are bigger and clearer.