Thursday, 1 January 2015

Global Warming: UK CO2 emision trends

You'll find the most recent charts detailing the UK's performance in reducing CO2 emissions here: Skellyrocker 

Provisional figures for 2013 suggest a 20% reduction in overall emissions over the last 20 years with the biggest contribution to the fall coming from energy suppliers switching from coal towards biomass, solar PV and wind power.
Note that domestic energy use and transport has hardly changed over the years.

Renewables provided 17.8% of UK energy in the most recent figures: [3rd quarter of 2013]
The growth in renewables has largely been due to increasing use of biomass and onshore wind farms. Some biomass arises from methane and some from burning refuse and some from crops. Though they're renewable, biofuels which are grown to burn take up valuable farming land and won't reduce our CO2 production.
A lot more needs to be done to insulate homes, switch to LED lighting and develop low carbon cars, buses and trains. Even if other countries fail to match the UK, knowledge and experience of low carbon technologies is likely to be a crucial survival factor for UK economic performance.


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