The deeper problem behind Europe’s rising carbon emissions

The Government takes a lot of stick for blaming the weather when there are queues at airports or lacklustre growth figures. Now the European Union is blaming a ‘colder winter’, as well as ‘economic recovery in many countries’, for emissions in 2010 being 111 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent higher – about 2.4 per cent –than they were in 2009. They are insistent that ‘the increase could have been even higher without the fast expansion of renewable energy. ’

Looking at the record of emissions in the European Union and the United States though, it is clear there is a deeper problem. Even ignoring emissions exports — the amount emitted in places like China instead of Europe — the developed European economies have been reducing the amount they emit for every pound of income at the same rate as the United States. Emissions intensity has fallen by about a third since 1990.