The Rhodium Group, an independent research group, said emissions rose 3.4 percent in 2018, the biggest jump since 2010, when the economy bounced back from the Great Recession.
Rhodium said the boost from the world’s second-biggest carbon emitter after China could make it harder for the United States to meet reductions targets it set under the Paris Agreement in 2015. To do so, the United States would have to cut energy-related carbon emissions by 2.6 percent on average over the next seven years, a pace more than twice that achieved between 2005 and 2017.
“It is certainly feasible, but will likely require a fairly significant change in policy in the very near future, and/or favorable market and technological conditions,” the group said.
The spike occurred even though 2018 brought a record number of shutdowns of power plants fired by coal, the fuel richest in carbon output when burned.
Natural gas, which emits about half the carbon of coal, replaced most of the lost coal generation. But it also served the vast majority of load growth for electricity last year, the report said.
The Trump administration, which has announced its intent to leave the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, is relaxing Obama-era rules on emissions from power plants and vehicles as it seeks to boost production of oil, gas and coal. The earliest the administration can leave the accord is after the 2020 presidential election.
Read more at U.S. Carbon Emissions Spike in 2018 on Industry, Fuel Demand
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