U.S. Carbon Emissions Down But HFCs Are Soaring
The news website, Responding to Climate Change , reports that “US greenhouse gas emissions dropped 10% from 2005 – 2012.”
The results, part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s annual inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, show emissions “fell 3.3% from 2011-2012 … The US is just over halfway to meeting a pledge made at UN talks in 2009 to cut GHG releases 17% on 2005 levels by 2020.”
“The EPA says the reductions are due to new clean energy generation sources, investments in efficiency measures and a drop in transportation sector emissions.”
However, “hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), refrigerant gases with a warming potential far more potent than CO2, soared from 36.9 million metric tons CO2 equivalent (CO2e) to 151.2 CO2e from 1990 to 2012.”