Carbon emissions in the U.S. experienced a sharp upswing in 2018, despite a record number of coal-fired power plant closings, according to new data. An analysis released by the research firm Rhodium Group Tuesday shows that emissions rose by 3.4 percent last year—the second-largest gain in more than twenty years.
The analysis also found that emissions from industrial manufacturing rose 5.7 percent, while transportation emissions rose 1 percent. The analysis describes these as industries “most often ignored in clean energy and climate policymaking” and significant drivers in the increase. “The big takeaway for me is that we haven’t yet successfully decoupled U.S. emissions growth from economic growth,” Rhodium analyst Trevor Houser told The New York Times.
“The U.S. has led the world in emissions reductions in the last decade thanks in large part to cheap gas displacing coal,” Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, who was not involved in the analysis, told The New York Times. “But that has its limits, and markets alone will not deliver anywhere close to the pace of decarbonization needed without much stronger climate policy efforts that are unfortunately stalled if not reversed under the Trump administration.”
Source: Eco Watch
