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US greenhouse gas emissions up 2 percent in 2004
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  • WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (AFP) Dec 20, 2005
    US greenhouse gas emissions increased by a higher than usual two percent in 2004, the Department of Energy announced.

    A total 7.12 million tons of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide was pumped into US skies in 2004, up from 6.98 million tons in 2003, the DoE said in a statement released Monday.

    Those levels represent a 16 percent increase from 1990, it said.

    The average annual increase since 1990 has been 1.1 percent.

    Carbon dioxide (CO2) accounted for 5.87 tons or 80 percent of the emissions, produced by burning oil, gas and coal, with electrical power plants and manufacturing industries the biggest contributors.

    The two percent increase is well below the growth rate of the US economy in 2004, 4.2 percent, the DoE pointed out.

    The statistics were released a week after a UN conference on climate change in Montreal in which the United States and China refused to join in discussions on setting target caps on emissions after 2012.

    That is when the "commitment period" of the current international treaty on curbing greenhouse gases, the Kyoto Protocol, expires.

    The United States, the world's biggest polluter, walked away from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. China and India, which together account for 25 percent of world emissions, are also not covered by the treaty.

    Even if all the present Kyoto goals are met, industrialized countries will have trimmed output of greenhouse gases by just one or two percent by 2012 as compared to a 1990 benchmark.

    At the current rate, the United States' greenhouse gas emissions will have increased by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

    President George W. Bush's administration has advocated voluntary efforts by the private sector and state government controls to address the problem.

    The US government spends three billion dollars annually on research and development of technology to conserve energy and cut pollution.




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