News | Climate Change

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-10/emissions-to-rise-more-slowly-through-2011-doe-says-update2-.html

Carbon dioxide emissions fell further in 2009 than first thought and may not rise as quickly as the economy grows, according to the Energy Information Administration’s monthly Short-term Energy Outlook.

Emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas fell 6.3 percent in 2009, the EIA said, a revision from last month’s estimate of 6.1 percent. The EIA’s prediction of a 1.5 percent increase in emissions this year was unchanged. Today’s prediction of a further 1.3 percent emissions increase in 2011 was lower than last month’s estimate of 1.7 percent.
President Barack Obama’s administration has told the United Nations that the U.S. is prepared to cut its emissions roughly 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Last year’s drop in emissions, the result of the weak economy, cut carbon dioxide more than half as much as needed to meet the 2020 goal.
In 2009, carbon dioxide emissions were 5.44 billion metric tons, or 8.8 percent below the 2005 level of 5.96 billion, the EIA said today. After a recession that began in December 2007, the U.S. economy grew at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter of last year and at 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter as factories ramped up production to rebuild depleted inventories.

Slower Growth in 2011

Carbon-dioxide emissions from energy use should be 5.52 billion tons this year, or 7.4 percent below the 2005 level, the EIA said. Emissions are expected to climb to 5.59 billion tons in 2011, or 6.2 percent below the 2005 baseline, as the economy grows, electricity generators use more coal and more travel increases use of petroleum.
In January, the EIA predicted 2011 carbon dioxide emissions would be 5.7 percent below the 2005 baseline. The difference amounts to 30 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Obama’s emissions pledge to the UN, part of negotiations over a new international treaty to limit the gases that scientists have linked to climate change, depends on Congress approving a cap-and-trade program in which companies would buy and sell the right to pollute.
Cap-and-trade legislation that passed the House in June last year is stalled in the Senate amid criticism from Republicans and some Democrats that regulating greenhouse gas emissions could hurt the economy.