Natural Gas World
  • Natural Gas News

    EU Sees Marginal Rise in Emissions

    old

Summary

Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by burning fossil fuels increased by 0.7% in the European Union last year compared with 2014, according to Eurostat.

by: William Powell

Posted in:

Natural Gas & LNG News, Carbon, Renewables, Gas to Power, Political, Environment, Regulation

Print This Article

EU Sees Marginal Rise in Emissions

Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by burning fossil fuels increased by 0.7% in the European Union last year compared with 2014, according to early estimates by statistics agency Eurostat.

The EU's emissions trading scheme was intended to set a high price on carbon emissions and so encourage more use of gas and renewables in electricity generation but it has failed to do so. The industrial recession allowed carbon emissions to rise in other sectors.

Eurostat says: "CO2 emissions are a major contributor to global warming and account for around 80% of all EU greenhouse gas emissions. They are influenced by factors such as climate conditions, economic growth, size of the population, transport and industrial activities. Various EU energy efficiency initiatives aim to reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases." It says that the emissions are recorded in the country of origin, so importing coal leads to an increase in emissions, while exporting the electricity it generates does not affect the importing country's emissions.

According to Eurostat estimates, CO2 emissions rose in most EU states, with the highest rises seen in Slovakia (+9.5%), Portugal (+8.6%) and Hungary (+6.7%), followed by Belgium (+4.7%) and Bulgaria (+4.6%). Decreases were registered in eight countries – including some of the least populous such as Malta (-26.9%), Estonia (-16.0%), Denmark (-9.9%) and Finland (-7.4%) – and Greece (-5.0%).

Germany, whose subsidies for renewable energy have in past years been accompanied by a rise in emissions, saw no change year on year. The UK introduced a carbon price floor in 2013 to make it easier for gas to compete with coal in power generation and that country saw a 2.9% decrease year on year as the gas price also fell sharply last year.

 

William Powell

Related Articles