The European Union has officially stabilised its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The total CO2 emissions in 2000 from the 15 member states were 0.5 per cent lower than the total of ten years earlier, according to the latest emissions inventory from the European Environment Agency (EEA).
However the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases rose between 1999 and 2000. CO2 emissions alone increased by 0.5 per cent; levels of CO2 and five other gases which are subject to the Kyoto Protocol increased by a slightly lower 0.3 per cent. Under the terms of the Protocol, the EU is to cut the combined emissions of the six gases to 8 per cent below their 1990 level by 2008-2012.
Overall, taking all six gases, the EU greenhouse gas inventory is 3.5 per cent below the level in 1990. The EEA director said that the EU has now achieved slightly less than half the reduction required by the Kyoto Protocol in slightly more than half the time before the first compliance period starts.
According to the EEA, one of the main reasons for the rise in CO2 emissions between 1999 and 2000 was a 2.4 per cent increase in the emissions from electricity and heat production, due partly to the greater use of coal for power generation, particularly in the UK which is the EU’s second largest emitter. Increased emissions in Greece, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Belgium were also to blame.
Over half of EU countries are significantly overshooting their agreed target emissions. Spain is the furthest from its target. Its emissions in 2000 were 33.7 per cent higher than a decade earlier; it has been allowed a 15 per cent increase between 1990 and 2008-2012. In contrast Germany, which creates more emissions than all other EU states, has also achieved the greatest reductions, recording a 19.1 per cent cut compared to 1990 levels, only a little short of the 21 per cent target for 2008-2012.
