https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/climate/greenhouse-gas-emissions-increase.html
U.S. Carbon Emissions Surged in 2018 Even as Coal Plants Closed
By Brad Plumer
Jan. 8, 2019
WASHINGTON — America’s carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4 percent in
2018, the biggest increase in eight years, according to a preliminary
estimate published Tuesday.
Strikingly, the sharp uptick in emissions occurred even as a near-record
number of coal plants around the United States retired last year,
illustrating how difficult it could be for the country to make further
progress on climate change in the years to come, particularly as the
Trump administration pushes to roll back federal regulations that limit
greenhouse gas emissions.
The estimate, by the research firm Rhodium Group, pointed to a stark
reversal. Fossil fuel emissions in the United States have fallen
significantly since 2005 and declined each of the previous three years,
in part because of a boom in cheap natural gas and renewable energy,
which have been rapidly displacing dirtier coal-fired power.
Yet even a steep drop in coal use last year wasn’t enough to offset
rising emissions in other parts of the economy. Some of that increase
was weather-related: A relatively cold winter led to a spike in the use
of oil and gas for heating in areas like New England.
But, just as important, as the United States economy grew at a strong
pace last year, emissions from factories, planes and trucks soared. And
there are few policies in place to clean those sectors up.
“The big takeaway for me is that we haven’t yet successfully decoupled
U.S. emissions growth from economic growth,” said Trevor Houser, a
climate and energy analyst at the Rhodium Group.
As United States manufacturing boomed, for instance, emissions from the
nation’s industrial sectors — including steel, cement, chemicals and
refineries — increased by 5.7 percent.
Policymakers working on climate change at the federal and state level
have so far largely shied away from regulating heavy industry, which
directly contributes about one-sixth of the country’s carbon emissions.
Instead, they’ve focused on decarbonizing the electricity sector through
actions like promoting wind and solar power.
But even as power generation has gotten cleaner, those overlooked
industrial plants and factories have become a larger source of climate
pollution. The Rhodium Group estimates that the industrial sector is on
track to become the second-biggest source of emissions in California by
2020, behind only transportation, and the biggest source in Texas by 2022.
There’s a similar story in transportation: Since 2011, the federal
government has been steadily ratcheting up fuel-economy standards for
cars and light trucks, although the Trump administration has proposed to
halt the toughening of those standards after 2021.
There are signs that those standards have been effective. In the first
nine months of 2018, Americans drove slightly more miles in passenger
vehicles than they did over that span the previous year, yet gasoline
use dropped by 0.1 percent, thanks in part to fuel-efficient vehicles
and electric cars.
But, as America’s economy expanded last year, trucking and air travel
also grew rapidly, leading to a 3 percent increase in diesel and jet
fuel use and spurring an overall rise in transportation emissions for
the year. Air travel and freight have also attracted less attention from
policymakers to date and are considered much more difficult to electrify
or decarbonize.
Demand for electricity surged last year, too, as the economy grew, and
renewable power did not expand fast enough to meet the extra demand. As
a result, natural gas filled in the gap, and emissions from electricity
rose an estimated 1.9 percent. (Natural gas produces lower CO2 emissions
than coal when burned, but it is still a fossil fuel.)
Even with last year’s increase, carbon dioxide emissions in the United
States are still down 11 percent since 2005, a period of considerable
economic growth. Trump administration officials have often cited that
broader trend as evidence that the country can cut its climate pollution
without strict regulations.
But if the world wants to avert the most dire effects of global warming,
major industrialized countries, including the United States, will have
to cut their fossil-fuel emissions much more drastically than they are
currently doing.
Last month, scientists reported that greenhouse gas emissions worldwide
rose at an accelerating pace in 2018, putting the world on track to face
some of the most severe consequences of global warming sooner than expected.