The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released data showing the country’s carbon emissions from its energy sector having fallen by 12% since 2005.
The US energy sector’s carbon dioxide emissions fell from 5.4 billion tons in 2014 to 5.2 billion tons in 2015.
The energy sector accounts for around a third of the total carbon dioxide emissions in the US, and a large portion (just under 70%) of the reduction seen was down to wide scale changed in fuel use.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review
The EIA said: “Many of the changes in energy related CO2 emissions in recent history have occurred in the electric power sector because of the decreased use of coal and the increased use of natural gas for electricity generation.”
Over the course of 2015, almost 100 coal plants were shut down in the US, with a total combined generating capacity of more than 13,500 megawatts, accounting for a relatively large drop in carbon emissions. This accounted for around 80% of the power stations shut down during the year.
All of this occurred over a period when the US enjoyed economic growth of around 15%, meaning that over the past ten years, carbon dioxide emissions per GDP unit in the country fell by almost 25%.
Bloomberg’s head of environmental investments, Colleen Regan, said that while the news is certainly good, it does not mean that the race is over, just that progress is being made in the right direction.
She said: “I think we have still got some work to do. I think Obama has done a lot but the next president will need to do more to bring emissions down in transport and industry.
“Maybe we should be asking the power sector to do more. It’s easier to reduce emissions in the power sector than in industry and we should be asked for the cheapest form of abatement. With the drops we’ve seen even without the Clean Power Plan, there’s scope to do more.”
The Clean Power Plan is a policy designed to cut down emissions across North America that was proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) two years ago. Its implementation has been stayed by the Supreme Court “pending judicial review”.
