Thursday 8 May 2014

EU records fall in carbon emissions in 2013

Carbon emissions in the European Union decreased by 2.5% last year, the EU’s statistics agency has revealed.

That’s in comparison to a 1.6% fall in 2012, according to early estimates of CO2 emissions from energy use by Eurostat.

However, despite emissions decreasing across the 28-member bloc by an average of 2.5% in 2013, they rose in six countries.

Germany was recorded as the worst polluter, with its production of CO2 gases from fossil fuels rising by 2% to 760 million tonnes, followed by the UK (455 million tonnes), France (346 million tonnes) and Italy (342 million tonnes).

The strongest cuts in CO2, which account for around 80% of the greenhouse gas emissions, came from Cyprus, where it fell by 14.7%, followed by Romania and Spain.

The EU produced a total of 3.35 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2013, down from a total of 3.4 billion tonnes the previous year.