US meets Kyoto CO2 emissions target -- only major country to do so

And all the peasants had to do was throw on an extra jacket during the winter as they slept in their beds.

 

thanks obama!

 

Ambiguously good news, but I'll take it.

So wait, is our economy during the bust the main reason for this or conserving energy has nothing to do with it?

 

Thanks Great Rescission! Thanks Bush!

 

Good news.

 

OP's original assertion was off (strange that he would post an article without reading, nvm), but yeah, more because of the economy. Don't think natural gas has had THAT much of an effect yet on total emissions, so it's largely a depressed economy. Odd though, since one would imagine it this was true for US, it would be even more true of the EU.

 

Do you have any proof?

http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/europes-co2-emissions-growing-ec-news-502537

 

Thanks Chuck Norris!!......


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I know this would be pretty hard to break down, but is the recovery service driven (less emissions I'm guessing) or manufacturing based (more emissions?). Just tossing out random ideas here. I'll also check out the coal emissions, I know of US's natural gas bonanza and producers are desperate to export it, but didn't know about how much energy its generating already in the US.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ouse-thinks-about-climate-change-in-7-charts/

CEA wonks say 50% slower growth, and 40% switching fuel sources (a portion of that is solar/wind, but I would guess 80-90% is gas).

No doubt coal-to-gas switching was a huge contributor to reduced emissions. Curious to see what happens if/when nat gas exports are allowed, and the price doesn't remain as low as it has been.

 

The gas shift in energy production has been pretty dramatic, and gas burns a lot cleaner. Gas prices are a bit higher now, but coal-fired plants are shuttering all over the place, or else getting retrofitted as clean-coal or biomass because of MATS regulations, so whatever benefits we got from shifting more electricity production to gas probably won't disappear.

Meanwhile, gas is expensive in Europe and elsewhere, and people are more worried about nuclear after the Fukushima disaster, so they'll keep burning coal like crazy.

 

That's not cool. Why not export our clean coal tech and push the premium under the pretext (all about $$$) of reducing greenhouse emissions.

 

Because Europe is already having a hard enough time without paying for uneconomic energy replacements. The reason it has worked in the US is that natural gas is replacing coal because of economic reasons.

Another factor is less gasoline usage due to more efficient autos replacing less efficient ones. The recession had an impact, but some of that impact was positive in that it made people reevaluate what provided the most utility per $ (ie replace Hummer with Camry).

 

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/greenhouse-gas-milestone-20130511


Worldwide levels of the chief greenhouse gas that causes global warming have hit a milestone, reaching an amount never before encountered by humans, federal scientists said Friday.

...The level of carbon dioxide in the air is rising faster than in the past decades, despite international efforts by developed nations to curb it. On average the amount is growing by about 2 ppm per year. That's 100 times faster than at the end of the Ice Age.
Back then, it took 7,000 years for carbon dioxide to reach 80 ppm, Tans said. Because of the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, carbon dioxide levels have gone up by that amount in just 55 years.