Trends in global CO2 emissions: 2013 Report and the Link to the interactive presentation

“Actual global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) reached a new record of 34.5 billion tonnes in 2012. Yet, the increase in global CO₂ emissions in that year slowed down to 1.1% , which was less than half the average annual increase of 2.9% over the last decade. This is remarkable, as the global economy grew by 3.5%. This development signals a shift towards less fossil-fuel-intensive activities, more use of renewable energy and increased energy saving. Increases in fossil-fuel consumption in 2012 were 2.2% for natural gas, 0.9% for oil products, and 0.6% for coal. The share of the ‘new’ renewable energy sources solar, wind and biofuel increased at an accelerating speed: from 1992 it took 15 years for the share to double from 0.5% to 1.1%, but only 6 more years to do so again, to 2.4% by 2012. These are some of the main findings in the annual report ‘Trends in global CO₂ emissions’, released today by PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). The report is based on recent results from the Emissions Database for Global  Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) and the latest statistics on energy use and various other activities. China, US and EU remain top emitting countries Three countries/regions remain responsible for 55% of total global CO₂emissions. Of these three, China (29% share) increased its CO₂ emissions by 3%, which is low compared with annual increases of about 10% over the last decade. Although China’s CO₂ emissions per capita are comparable to those in the EU and almost half of the US emissions per capita, its CO₂emissions per USD in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are almost double those in the EU and the United States and similar to those in the Russian Federation. In the United States (16% share), CO₂ emissions decreased by 4%, mainly because of a further shift from coal to gas in the power sector. The European Union (11% share) saw its emissions decrease by 1.6%, mainly due to a decrease in energy consumption (oil and gas) and a decrease in road freight transport.”