EPA draft: US greenhouse gas emissions saw record single-year spike in 2021
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose 5.5 percent in 2021 from the previous year, an all-time year-over-year spike, but were still below 2019 levels, according to a draft Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report.
In the draft of its annual inventory, the agency found total emissions of 6,347.7 million metric tons in 2021, driven largely by increased auto emissions as driving rebounded in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fossil fuel combustion-related emissions increased 7 percent relative to the year before, while emissions from coal consumption rose 14.6 percent.
Emissions in 2021 mark a 2 percent decline from 1990, when the EPA began tracking them, and nearly 18 percent down from 2007, when they reached their recorded peak.
The EPA found that 2020 saw a record drop in emissions as economic activity largely halted during the initial wave of pandemic restrictions that began in the spring of that year, with emissions falling 8.9 percent.
Fossil fuel combustion comprised the vast majority of carbon dioxide emissions in 2021, at around 92.1 percent. Electric power demand also increased 2.1 percent from 2020 to 2021, for an overall emissions increase of 7.1 percent.
Despite the sharp increase compared to 2020, 2021 emissions from fossil fuel consumption were down 1.3 percent from 2019, part of a longer decline, while emissions from electric power were down 4 percent from 2019 to 2021, according to the EPA.
The EPA inventory also found that methane emissions comprised 11.5 percent of emissions in 2021. While methane emissions are less common than carbon dioxide and have a shorter lifespan in the atmosphere than other greenhouse gases, they trap more heat in the atmosphere.
Methane emissions, like those from carbon dioxide, have seen a longer-term decline, with emissions down 16.3 percent between 1990 and 2021, according to the EPA inventory.
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