Greenhouse-gas emissions by the industrialised world are still rising, with the United States firmly entrenched as the biggest polluter, a United Nations report said on Monday.
In an annual update on global-warming pollution, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said that, compared with the benchmark year of 1990, the 41 industrialised countries it monitors trimmed their emissions by 3,3% by the end of 2004.
But this was mainly due to the slump in the former Soviet bloc economies in the 1990s, which forced the closure or overhaul of thousands of power stations and factories that spewed out carbon dioxide.
Because of that historic change, countries in Eastern and Central Europe had a decrease in emissions from 1990-2004 of 36,8%. But from 2000-2004, they in fact increased their pollution by 4,1% as their economies emerged from the post-Soviet crash.
In contrast, the other industrialised countries saw an increase in pollution of 11% from 1990-2004. From 2000-2004, the increase was 2%.
”Industrialised countries will need to intensify their efforts to implement strong policies which reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” the UNFCCC’s executive secretary, Yvo de Boer, warned.
The report applies to so-called Annex One countries of the UNFCCC, the offshoot of the famous 1992 Rio Summit on the planet’s environmental future and parent of the Kyoto Protocol for curbing greenhouse gases. Annex Two parties are developing countries and the poorer ex-Soviet republics.
The report showed:
the United States remains by far the world’s biggest polluter. Of the 17,931-billion tonnes emitted by Annex One countries in 2004, 39,4% was emitted by the US alone. With 7,067-billion tonnes, the United States accounts for nearly a quarter of the global total of greenhouse-gas pollution.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, which President George Bush abandoned in 2001 because of what he cited as its cost to the US economy, the US pledged to reduce its emissions by 6% by 2012 compared to 1990.
In 2004, it was 21,1% above the benchmark year, the UNFCCC said. The increase from 2000 to 2004 was 1,3%.
- Australia, which likewise signed but refused to ratify Kyoto, is also way off its Kyoto pledge. It had agreed to increase emissions by a maximum of 8% compared with 1990 by the 2012 deadline; in 2004, they were already 25,1% above the benchmark year.
- The Kyoto Protocol ratifiers have pledged to cut emissions by on average 5% by 2012 compared with 1990. In 2004, they were 15,3% below the 1990 level, although this figure masks the effects of the economic post-Soviet slump in eastern and central Europe and some hugely varying performances.
Japan, for instance, pledged a cut of 6% by 2012, yet in 2004 it already had an increase of 6% over 1990. Spain is pegged to a rise of only 15% by 2012 but in 2004 was already 49% over the 1990 target.
De Boer was upbeat, though. He said Kyoto countries stood a good chance of meeting their promises provided they swiftly applied pollution-curbing measures and used the protocol’s market mechanisms to help accelerate these programmes.
- Emissions by Annex One countries from agriculture fell by 20% from 1990-2004 and from industry by 13,1%. But pollution by transport rose by 23,9%, reflecting that reductions in this sector ”seem to be especially hard to achieve,” the UNFCCC said.
Greenhouse gases are so called because, as in a stuffy greenhouse, they linger invisibly in the air. Instead of letting solar radiation bounce back into space, the gases trap it, thus warming Earth’s surface.
Scientists say there is mounting evidence that the world’s climate system is starting to be affected by the warming and are demanding quick, deep cuts in the gases to avert what could be a catastrophe.
The big culprits for this carbon-based pollution are oil, gas and coal — the fossil fuels on which today’s prosperity was built and on which every economy still depends.
Curbing the pollution carries an economic and thus political cost, because it requires users of these fuels to be more efficient or switch to cleaner alternatives. – AFP
