On the cusp of the Poznan U.N. Climate Change Conference, data just published by the U.N.’s climate secretariat show that many industrialized nations’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been rising.  The emissions data underscore the difficulties that some industrialized countries are having in meeting their existing emissions reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, which run through 2012, as well as the enormity of the challenge in reaching the deep emissions cuts that many U.N. members say are urgently required.  The new data will also likely re-open a longstanding debate concerning the reliability of the various methodologies employed to calculate national emissions levels.

Under Article 4.1(a) of the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), all member states are obligated to report, on a periodic basis, GHG emissions from anthropogenic sources and the removal of GHG sinks (such as through changes in land use or forest cover).  Pursuant to a series of decisions of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, the 41 industrialized countries identified in Annex I to the Kyoto Protocol must provide more detailed emissions data on an annual basis.  Non-Annex I countries, which include China, India, and other large industrializing countries, are not subject to these more rigorous emissions reporting obligations.

The report, which covers the period 1990 through 2006, confirms that the United States, the EC and Russia remain the largest three Annex I emitters.  The report also shows for each of these jurisdictions that, while 2006 emissions represented a slight drop from 2005 levels, those same emissions were somewhat higher than 2000 emissions.  The United States remained by far the largest Annex I emitter, at just over 7 billion tons in 2006 (according to some sources, China has now eclipsed the United States as the world’s largest GHG emitter).  Total EC emissions were just over 4.1 billion tons, while Russian emissions were 2.2 billion tons.  This represented a drop from those countries’ 1990 emissions of 2.2% and 34%, respectively.  In contrast, U.S. emissions grew 14.4% over the same period.

For all Annex I countries, emissions fell by 4.7% over the period 1990 through 2006 (or 5.5% if the effects of land-use and forestry changes are taken into account).  Much of this decline is believed to represent the collapse of Soviet-era industries in Russia and Eastern Europe during  the early 1990s.  However, during the last six years of this period, emissions for all Annex I countries rose by 2.3% (or 1.0% if the effects of land-use and forestry are included). 

The data also show very substantial emissions increases for certain key Annex I countries.  Over the period 1990 through 2006, Turkey’s emissions (not accounting for land-use or forestry changes) increased by over 95%, reflecting that country’s rapid rate of industrialization of this 16-year period.  Also significantly, Spain’s GHG emissions over the same period increased by over 50%; Australia’s increased by nearly 29%; and Canada’s increased by nearly 22%.  At the other end of the spectrum, the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—each registered 2006 GHG emissions levels that were over 50% below 1990 levels.

The new emissions data suggest looming complications for the ongoing UNFCCC negotiations, which will continue during the first two weeks of December in Poznan, Poland.  Submissions by the various parties, which were collected and released on Friday, reveal the substantial gaps that must be bridged in order to reach a new global emissions pact by the end of 2009 to supersede the Kyoto Protocol.  Among other significant outstanding issues, some major developing countries not bound by current Annex I emissions reduction commitments, including China, maintain that developed countries must take the lead in reducing emissions.  The new emissions data serve as a harsh backdrop to these ongoing negotiations, reminding the parties that the global economic growth of recent years has, on balance, been accompanied by increased emissions.

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