US greenhouse gases drop to 15-year low

Greenhouse gas emissions in the US dropped to their lowest level in 15 years in 2009 as the impact of the financial crisis led to decreases in fuel and electricity consumption, according to newly published figures.

In 2009, the US saw its emissions of the six main greenhouses gases drop 6 per cent year-on-year to 6,633m metric tonnes, the lowest total since 1995. Despite that annual fall, emissions rose by more than 7.3 per cent between 1990 and 2009.

The figures, released by the Environmental Protection Agency, are likely to be seized upon by Republicans as evidence that there is no need for further regulation of carbon emissions. The GOP has embarked on a campaign in recent months to strip the EPA of its ability to regulate hydrocarbons as well as other pollutants.
A Republican-sponsored bill recently passed by the House has been viewed as a wide-ranging attack on the EPA. The proposed legislation argues that carbon dioxide was not mentioned in the Clean Air Act which gave the EPA legal authority to regulate air pollutants.
The greenhouse gas inventory – which also calculated carbon dioxide emissions that were removed from the atmosphere through the uptake of carbon by forests, vegetation and soil – has been submitted by the US to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The US signed and ratified the convention, which sets an overall global framework for nations to address climate change, in 1992.

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by By Matthew Kennard in Washington taken from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dfc8a384-6a06-11e0-86e4-00144feab49a.html#axzz1JyBtiF6V