Seeker Blog

CO2 emissions down 1.3% in 2006? That’s very interesting — must have been a decline in economic activity. Oops, no the economy was growing strongly - by 3.3% [a closely guarded secret that NPR and CBS don’t want you to know].

You can examine the data for yourself. The U.S. DOE Energy Information Administration has published energy-related CO2 emissions estimates [PDF, which I prefer — there is also Flash].

John Wixted comments on the DOE report, with tongue-in-cheek giving some credit to the Bush administration:

The magenta symbols show the U.S. GDP in constant dollars, and the blue symbols show our CO2 output. As you can see, economic growth has been substantial during the Bush years (increasing by 16%). Despite that, CO2 emissions have not changed appreciably (increasing by only 1%). Thus, for the moment at least, we seem to have achieved the freeze on CO2 emissions that Al Gore thinks we need to legislate before time runs out.

We obviously don’t know that this favorable trend will continue, but can’t we give George Bush at least one tiny iota of credit here? The credit he deserves is approximately equal to the hysterical opprobrium and scorn you would have heaped upon him had greenhouse gas emissions increased by 10% on his watch. I suspect that this graph — which shows that we have almost “frozen” CO2 emissions on Bush’s watch — does not correspond to what most green-oriented liberals believe to be true.

Of course, like hurricanes, presidents have little short term impact on economic growth or greenhouse gas emissions. There is some evidence that the Bush tax cuts accelerated economic growth, but that’s another topic.

What explains the divergence of CO2 from GDP growth? Three things I think:

[1] In part it is the yearly dividend of GGI [greenhouse gas intensity], which has been averaging about -1.8%/year for the past 50 years. Since 1990 GGI has averaged -1.9%/year. GGI is a compounding improvement in efficiency [like productivity], so since 1990 the CO2 emissions per unit of GDP have declined almost 27%.

[2] The weather was favorable: mild winter, cooler summer.

[3] The power generation fuel mix shifted slightly, away from coal to more natural gas, nuclear, and renewables.

Bottom line: the 2006 drop isn’t a new trend. So politically unpopular policies are still required to adjust incentives so the markets produce the results we desire:

1. A carbon tax, discussed many times in Seekerblog - e.g., see “Carbon taxes or cap-and-trade?”

2. Real-world full scale tests of carbon sequestration. If this doesn’t work then we are facing very serious problems with coal dependence. The MIT Future of Coal study stresses this urgent priority.

3. For a better-explained top-five key actions see Elements of an effective response to global warming.