US GHG Emissions Come Roaring Back In 2021 - Up 6.8% Over 2020; Coal Emissions Up 17%
Planet-heating emissions roared back in the United States in 2021, dashing hopes that the pandemic would prove a watershed moment in greening American society to address the climate crisis, new figures have shown. Following the onset of the pandemic in 2020, millions of people switched to working from home, car and airplane travel plummeted and industrial output slowed. This led to a sharp drop in greenhouse gas emissions, spurring predictions that a newly shaped American economy would emerge to help banish the era of fossil fuels.
These forecasts may well have been baseless, however, with the new research showing that US emissions rose by 6.2% last year, compared to 2020. While emissions were still 5% down from 2019 levels, the jump in pollution as people returned to previous rhythms of life was greater than last year’s overall economic growth.
“We expected a rebound but it’s dismaying that emissions came back even faster than the overall economy,” said Kate Larsen, a partner at Rhodium Group, the independent research firm that conducted the analysis. “We aren’t just reducing the carbon intensity of the economy, we are increasing it. We are doing exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing.”
The leap in emissions in 2021 was largely down to an increase in cars and trucks on the road, with a 10% growth in transportation emissions from a year previously as Americans, and their goods, started moving again amid optimism spurred by the rollout of vaccines. Coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels that has been in a steady decline in the US, also made an unwelcome return, with its use in power generation posting a 17% increase on 2020. Emissions from industrial processes rose by 6.6% last year, while emissions from the use of buildings edged up slightly.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/10/us-emissions-climate-crisis-global-heating
