Related Posts
Study: Worst CO2 emissions are yet to come
Future fossil fuel infrastructure set to be built between now and 2060 will have the strongest effect on...
UK: emissions up, biofuels a disappointment
The UK’s chief environmental scientist has stated that Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions have actually increased in the last...
EU on track to meet or exceed its goals on carbon emissions reduction
Of late, the 27-strong European Union member nations have attained an estimated 13.6% lower carbon emissions than the...
CO2 Emissions and Global Temperatures Keep Getting HigherThe world is in trouble—and more so than originally thought.
Yes, over the past couple of years we have...
Europe’s pollution and emissions from transportation go up
An EU study has shown that despite efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from transportation within...
Tip of the Day
When given the choice, take the stairs instead of the elevator to save energy and workout at the same time!
UK emissions up 3.1% in 2010
photo by eskimo_jo (Flickr CC)
Though the economic recession caused UK greenhouse gas emissions to fall in 2009 (8.7% from 2008 levels), in 2010 they climbed back up by 3.1%, according to a new government report.
This is the first rise in emissions since 2003 and can be attributed to the unusually cold winter of 2010. Power generation used more fossil fuels during the year.
An article in the Guardian associates the rise in emissions with the economic recovery after the recession (has there been an ‘after the recession?’) though it also states that industries such as business, agriculture and transport, stayed ‘static’.
The big difference, besides the cold weather, seems to be a transition away from nuclear power to traditional fossil fuels like coal and natural gas.
From Reuters:
Most of the rest of the increase was due to a greater number of maintenance shutdowns at low-carbon nuclear power plants, which forced utilities to burn more fossils fuels to generate electricity, the report said.
Despite the 2010 rise, the UK is still ahead of its Kyoto target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, (24% since 1990 compared to the goal of 12.5%). The target for 2020 is a reduction of 35% from 1990 levels.
Tags: 2010, emissions, fossil fuels, greenhouse gas, nuclear power, UK
2 Comments
You can also log in to post a comment.
Other Greenfudge.org posts
Space news: Moon base and Lego in space
US Republican presidential candidate and blowhard Newt Gingrich has stated that he will build a base on the moon by his second term should he get elected. Gingrich said he’d like to get there before the Chinese do. Well, the US did put someone there before the Chinese and everyone else back in 1969, though it was the Soviets who first put an unmanned craft on the lunar surface. OK, so they didn’t stay there and colonize as Newt would like. Republican...
Oil leak video + Deepwater Horizon rig officially a Marshall Islands vessel
It turns out that deepwater drilling off the coast of the United States is a pretty experimental thing. In recent years the industry has been largely self-regulatory, which has allowed them to cut corners and take advantage of loopholes in the law. For example, the Deepwater Horizon rig, leased by BP, owned by Transocean and built in Korea, is officially a vessel of the Pacific nation the Marshall Islands – because of that country's lax maritime regulations. In other words...
Sunblock in pill form?
Researchers from Kings College London are studying the symbiotic relationship between coral and algae living in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. They found that in order to survive in strong sunlight, coral produces compounds that act as a natural sunscreen. Scientists hope to use genetic engineering to recreate the compounds in a laboratory back in the UK and eventually develop a sunscreen in pill form. Since the compound is already present in the food chain in the coral reefs – small fish ingest...
Endangered Species of the Week: Southern bluefin tuna
Species: Southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) Status: Critically Endangered (CR) Interesting fact: The southern bluefin tuna is one of the largest bony fish in the world, growing up to 4.3 metres long! The southern bluefin tuna is an incredibly streamlined and powerful fish capable of reaching speeds of up to 70 km per hour through the water. Swimming together in shoals, the southern bluefin tuna migrates vast distances from the spawning grounds in the Indian Ocean to the feeding grounds in colder, southern waters....
UK: World’s largest offshore wind farm opens off Kent
Generally considered to lag far behind many other European countries when it comes to generating renewable energy – in the EU only Malta and Luxembourg produce proportionally less – the UK has just opened the biggest offshore wind farm in the world. The opening of the Thanet wind power project, located off the coast of Kent, means that in one fell swoop, Britain now produces more power from offshore wind than the rest of the world put together. Even larger wind...
Lace Hill: Green Spaces, Offices, Hotel Rooms, and Much More!
Some people have done an excellent job at building and perfecting their own version of a Hobbit-hole. Imagine if that concept was expanded to something the size of a large hill (or small mountain) and included homes, office spaces, and hotel accommodations (among other things). Designers Forrest Fulton envisioned such a thing and the location for it is in Yerevan, Armenia. Dubbed Lace Hill, the proposed project basically amounts to a 900,000 square foot (85,000 sq m) hillside. Native plants will...
Freeconomist lives off the grid, without cash and eats vegan ‘waste grub’
Mark Boyle is not a bum or a drain on society or a weird cult leader trying to amass followers and start a revolution. He is an advocate of something called ‘freeconomy’; an ideology based on sharing, friendship and cooperation rather than money. It is a zero cash, zero waste, zero impact philosophy. Kind of like freeganism, but with a bit less dumpster diving, I guess. Founder of the online freeconomy community, Boyle decided to spend a year without using cash...
British gorilla specialist killed in Cameroon
Primatologist Ymke Warren has been murdered in her home in the upscale neighborhood of Limbe, Cameroon. The murder took place on Tuesday morning when an assailant, who had presumably been hiding in Warren’s attic, attacked her with a machete. Warren lived together with partner Aaron Nicholas, also a primatologist and director of a gorilla project in Cameroon, who returned home minutes after the attack. Nicholas took Warren to the hospital, but her injuries were too severe. The couple were working on the...
Creature Feature: The Freshwater Sawfish
This week’s Creature Feature takes us to the shallow oceans of the Indo-Pacific region. The Freshwater Sawfish (also known as the Largetooth Sawfish or Leichhardt’s Sawfish) is a critically endangered species that can be found between latitudes 11 N and 39 S in the Indo-West Pacific oceans. It grows up to 23 ft (approx. 7 m) in length, though you’re probably more interested in its “saw” feature. The saw is broad-based and has between 14 and 23 teeth along each side....
Endangered Species of the Week: Trumpet-mouthed hunter snail
Species: Trumpet-mouthed hunter snail (Gulella salpinx) Status: Critically Endangered (CR) Interesting Fact: The trumpet-mouthed hunter snail does not lay eggs but ‘gives birth’ to miniature juvenile snails! The rather flamboyant common name of the species refers to the flaring, trumpet-like opening of its distinctive shell. As a recently discovered species, relatively little is known about the trumpet-mouthed hunter snail’s biology. It is endemic to a single limestone outcrop of the Marble Delta in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The ‘hunter’ part of...
View all articles
Yes, weather is always unpredictable… or has unpredictable elements, but the real culprit is fossil fuel use and a failure to use low carbon energy. I realize nuclear has its own problems, but replacing it with coal will of course up GHG emissions.
I’m afraid to think that somehow it’s too late for us to act or fix on our environmental issues. An example of that is no matter how UK wanted to decrease its green house emission but because of the climate abnormalities , all of a sudden things became unpredictable in terms of the weather. So they ended up using more than the usual usage of their warming utilities. It was hard before but it seems harder now to do some sudden changes of limiting solely on our consumption without fixing first what we’ve already exploited.