By Pilita Clark, Environment Correspondent
The European Union, home to some of the world?s greenest governments, is about to record the biggest yearly jump in carbon emissions in 20 years, figures show.
Economic recovery and an unusually cold winter that saw consumers use their heating for longer and at higher levels helped push 2010 emissions in the bloc up by 2.4 per cent from the previous year, according to preliminary estimates by the European Environment Agency.
That is the biggest year-on-year jump since 1990, agency officials said. The previous biggest increase was in 1996, when the 27-member bloc?s emissions rose 2 per cent compared with 1995.
The 2010 increase comes after annual emissions plunged 7 per cent in 2009 as factories in the grip of economic recession slashed their production, leading to a fall in pollution levels. But a growth in electricity generation from renewable sources such as solar and wind also played a part in that 2009 decline, the agency said.
The figures came as a new EU survey which polled 27,000 people in June (before the latest deterioration in the eurozone crisis) found Europeans rated climate change as a more serious problem than the global economic situation and as the most serious problem in the world after poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water.
The 15 EU countries with a collective Kyoto protocol obligation to cut carbon emissions are still broadly on track to meet their targets. Their emissions have fallen 10.6 per cent since 1990, exceeding the 8 per cent decrease they were supposed to achieve by 2012.
However, three of the 15 countries – Italy, Austria and Luxembourg – are lagging behind and need to do more to tackle their emissions, especially in areas such as transport and household heating, which are not covered by the EU?s six-year-old emissions trading scheme.
The 27 EU members have a separate target to cut their emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 from 1990 levels. Their carbon pollution has already fallen 15.5 per cent since that year, the European Environment Agency said, but they needed to do more.
? The Financial Times Limited 2011
