America’s carbon dioxide emissions last year fell to their
lowest levels since 1994, according to a new report. Carbon
dioxide emissions fell by 13 percent in the past five years,
because of new energy-saving technologies and a doubling in the
take-up of renewable energy, the report compiled by Bloomberg
New Energy Finance (BNEF) for the Business Council for
Sustainable Energy (BCSE) said. The reduction in climate
pollution – even as Congress failed to act on climate change –
brings America more than halfway towards Barack Obama’s target
of cutting emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels over the
next decade, the Bloomberg analysts said. By the end of last
year, America’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gas emissions had fallen 10.7 percent from the 2005 baselines.
ALSO FROM CLIMATE CENTRAL That drop puts Obama in a better
position to defend his environmental achievements, which have
often gone overlooked in the bitter rows over climate science.
It may also buoy up America’s standing in the