Environmental Law

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Going the Wrong Way -- Up

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

Some newly released data suggests just how difficult will be the battle to control emissions of gases believed to contribute to climate change.

A new analysis from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory found that despite widespread concern about climate change, annual carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels and manufacturing cement have grown 38 percent since 1992. The increase pushed the yearly total from 6.1 billion metric tons of carbon to 8.5 billion metric tons in 2007, according to a statement issued by the lab, an arm of the U.S. Department of Energy.
 

Rapidly developing countries such as India and China have been the source of much of the increase, suggested the research. Gregg Marland, of the laboratory's environmental sciences division, said in the statement:

"The United States was the largest emitter of CO2 in 1992, followed in order by China, Russia, Japan and India. The most recent estimates suggest that India passed Japan in 2002, China became the largest emitter in 2006, and India is poised to pass Russia to become the third largest emitter, probably this year."

According to the researchers, the three most important human-caused sources of carbon dioxide emissions are burning fossil fuels and cement manufacturing, along with deforestation.

Then, even more recently, according to Reuters, another set of researchers found levels of a potent heat-trapping gas, nitrogen triflouride, were four times as high as previously thought. The gas, described as thousands of times more effective at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, is used in the manufacture of flat-panel monitors, to etch silicon wafers, and, perhaps ironically, in the manufacture of thin film photovoltaic solar cells.

The latest data, compiled by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, showed the amount of nitrogen triflouride in the atmosphere was 4,200 metric tons in 2006. This year, the estimate was put at 5,400 metric tons, a quantity that is increasing about 11 percent annually.

The researchers used new analytical techniques to make the measurements, according to a statement from the institute. Geochemist Ray Weiss, in the statement, said:

"Accurately measuring small amounts of NF3 in air has proven to be a very difficult experimental problem, and we are very pleased to have succeeded in this effort."

The statement added that emissions of the gas had been thought to be so low that it was not considered to be a significant potential contributor to climate change. It was not one of the gases covered by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Weiss said, however, that "there is a need to add" the gas to the list of those regulated under the multinational accord.

--Dennis Pfaff of Thelen LLP

Photo: Thin film solar cell; courtesy U.S. Department of Energy-National Renewable Energy Laboratory; credit MicroLink Devices

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on October 24, 2008 (boomark / email).