Recent data has revealed an 11 percent fall in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through 2009, across all industry sectors operating within the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The data, published on April 1st, shows 1,887 million tonnes of GHGs emitted during 2009, down from the 2,120Mt emitted during the previous year.
The information was released by the European Commission’s (EC) Community Independent Transaction Log (CITL). The EC further suggested that the fall in emissions was likely due to the impacts of recession across all sectors and countries operating within the ETS.
This economic impact is further supported through Point Carbon market intelligence, who suggest the recession’s impact on power demand was in fact greater in 2009 than in 2008. The year on year reduction in emissions was only 6 percent from 2007 to 2008.
Emissions were reduced across all countries verifying emissions within the scheme, most notably from Italy and Spain (16 percent reductions) and the UK (13 percent reductions). The UK also released overall emissions figures for the nation last week, revealing an overall reduction of 8.6 percent compared with 2008 figures.