EU Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report

By Paul Homewood 

 

The EU have recently published its Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report for this year, which contains the numbers for 2012, the latest available.

 

http://www.eea.europa.eu//publications/european-union-greenhouse-gas-inventory-2014

 

Highlights include:

• Increases since 2011 for both the UK and Germany.
• Year on year decreases in Spain and Greece, no doubt largely due to the economic recession there.
• Overall decrease of about 1% for both EU-15 and EU-28.
• Italian emissions decreased from 2004 with significant drops in 2009 and 2012, which were mainly due to the economic crisis and reductions in industrial output during these years.

 

In 2009, the EU set legally binding targets to reduce GHG emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020. However, this was not quite the radical challenge it appears, as, by 2009, emissions were already 13% below for the EU-15, and 18% lower for the wider EU-28. As they point out in their latest report, these reductions had little to do with climate change targets, and everything to do with changing economic fundamentals:-

 

1) The reduction of GHG emissions in the United Kingdom were primarily the result of liberalising energy markets and the subsequent fuel switches from oil and coal to gas in electricity production.

2) The favourable trend in Germany were increasing efficiency in power and heating plants and the economic restructuring of the five new Länder after German reunification. (Translation – shutting down for inefficient East German power plants and heavy industry).

3) The main factors for decreasing emissions in Poland — as with other new Member States — were the decline of energy-inefficient heavy industry and the overall restructuring of the economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

 

The 2008 recession also had a clear effect, contributing significantly to emission reductions of 9% between 2007 and 2009.

The EU target for 2020 demands emission levels of no more than 3410 Mt for the EU-15, a reduction of 209 Mt, or 6%, from 2012 levels. Since 2009, reductions of 103 Mt have been achieved, so the targets are not unachievable.

However, given that Germany are massively increasing their coal fired generating capacity, and that the EU has remained mired in recession since 2009, one wonders if the targets are achievable if economic growth returns.

(Of course, a cynical person might question whether such growth will occur, if the EU continues its ruinous energy policies!)

 

Meanwhile, for all the pain and cost endured, UK emissions have dropped by a barely noticeable 9 Mt, about 1.5%, between 2009 and 2012. Over this period, China have been increasing theirs by this amount every week.